


Steve Harrington: Home Alone

by peterqpan



Series: Harringrove Works [7]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: ACTUAL SEXYTIMES, Because people are trying though, Christmas, Comfort No Hurt, Cookie making, Doing Their Best, Everybody's Trying, Found Family, HAVING A GOOD TIME, Holidays, Lots of people around but these are just the important ones, M/M, Making Christmas, People being nice to their kids (and adopting more), Some angst, slumber parties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:07:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28140633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterqpan/pseuds/peterqpan
Summary: When Steve finds out he's got the house to himself over Christmas, first, he invites Billy.  Then he finds Joyce Byers stranded with a dead battery outside the Bradley's Big Buy, and finds out she's having Christmas with no power.  Then she invites Hopper and El, and that's just the beginning.Everyone does their very best at Christmas, and ends up having a pretty damn good time.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Series: Harringrove Works [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624003
Comments: 33
Kudos: 91
Collections: Harringrove Holiday Exchange 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shleeps](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shleeps/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, shleeps! Hopefully it's okay this is pretty Christmas-y...I tried to get in your schmoop, and your Good Parent Joyce Byers, and your smut! It made it kinda long, though, hope that's okay! I hope your holidays are lovely!

“Hey,” Steve whispered, against Billy’s lips, grinning, pinned to his locker with Billy’s fingers clenched in his jacket. "Hey, I, uh. I got the house to myself for a few days. Wanna—”

“They what,” Billy paused, pulling back to frown at him. “They went away for Christmas _ without  _ you?” 

“No,” Steve laughed. “It’s for business, y’know.” He was still smiling, but it didn’t look happy.

“You wanting a sleepover, Harrington?” Billy asked, laughing.

“Wanna unwrap you Christmas morning,” Steve said, and Billy’s blood all rushed to his dick without stopping to let him answer. 

“...maybe I can sneak out,” he said hoarsely. He kissed his boyfriend again, breathing in the smell of wet hair care products, exhaust fumes, and melting snow.   


Billy’s dad was late again, that night, and he, Max, and Susan chewed long and peacefully at the rubbery meat in her casserole, listening to tinny Christmas carols. 

“Neil, uh,” Susan started, then swallowed. “I—I’m—he said to say—”

“Jesus, Mom, talk for yourself,” Max shot over, and Susan bit her lips together, watching her hands. 

She sighed. “He has to go out of town,” she told them, and Billy and Max stared at her, Max’s mouth twitching.

“Wait, when?” Max asked, dropping her fork. “How long will he be gone?”

“He’ll be gone for a week,” Susan said softly, her eyes on the casserole bite she was smushing into her plate. “He’s leaving tomorrow—”

“He’ll be gone for _ Christmas?!  _ Holy _ hell,  _ best present _ ever,”  _ she crowed, and Billy drew a breath, trying not to smile like a goon. He choked on his casserole. 

The house was already decorated for Christmas—Susan had done it when they were at school—and Billy coughed into a poinsettia-themed napkin. 

He slammed his fist into his chest as he rose and grabbed the phone, hauling the cord into the bathroom to dial. “Steve,” he panted into the phone, still coughing. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Hey, I can come. I can come for Christmas.”

“You can?!” Steve sounded startled, but delighted. “You—you want to come over here for Christmas? I don’t—there won’t be anything—I can try to cook a—”

“I’m not coming for dinner, moron,” Billy sighed, feeling his cheeks heat as he grinned. “Not into you for your cooking skills.”

“We should get pies or something. Or ice cream,” Steve said, laughing. “Are—are you sure you wanna—you don’t have to, I mean, I’m used to it, it’s fine, I didn’t expect you to—”

“I’m coming,” Billy told him, imagining Steve watching reruns of _Family Feud_ and staring at the wall all Christmas day. “Shut up, doofus, I’m gonna be there, okay.”

“Gimme the phone, Billy!” Max shouted, kicking the door. “I need to call Lucas!”

He surrendered it as she brushed by him on his way out. Susan was alone at the dinner table, her head in her arms. 

On Christmas eve, Steve wouldn’t stop _ prowling the house,  _ so Billy finally grabbed him around the waist and spun him around. “The hell is your _ deal.  _ You need walkies?”

Steve laughed, sliding his arms around Billy’s neck. “F’we got some food, we could have like a real Christmas, y’know.”

Billy squinted over Steve ‘TV dinners are food’ Harrington’s shoulder at the wall. “Whaddaya mean ‘food’?”

“...like a ham or something,” Steve mumbled, and Billy considered, swaying them around. 

“...you wanna go to the store?” he asked, and Steve pulled away to see his face so fast Billy staggered holding him up. He looked delighted, and Billy sighed internally over his planned lazy day of sex. “I can make a pie or something,” he offered, and Steve hugged him.

Billy was stuffed in Steve’s old ski jacket, taking a smoke break behind the Bradley’s Big Buy while Steve bought the _ entire grocery store,  _ when he heard a woman’s voice shouting, and some loud _ thumps.  _ He leaned around the corner of the building into the wind to watch her smacking the pay phone around, and wondered which of her kids was getting the verbal beatdown, but then she stumbled back, wiping her face with both wrists, and turned to bang her fist against the hood of her snow-covered car. The wind tried to take her hat, and she smacked her hand down on her head.

He meandered towards her, checking his watch—Steve had been buying everything for ages, surely everything had already been _ bought— _ as she opened her driver’s-side door and climbed in, slumping against the steering wheel. The snow on her roof and window fell a little with the force of her slam, whirling away into the gray evening, but it started building up again almost immediately. 

Her car didn’t _ move.  _ Billy squinted, crouching, to look in her snowy window, and she just sat there, as the sun set on Christmas eve, huddled in her driver’s seat in the snow. Billy wandered over to knock on the driver’s side windshield, the salted road crunching underfoot.

She rolled it down and sniffled, and he squinted at her, fairly sure she was somebody’s mom. “Hello,” she said, wiping her nose with her wrist, but her eyes were suspiciously red and shiny. “I’m fine!” she said brightly, before he could ask.

“A—are you sure?” Billy asked, noticing her shivering, and the buildup of breath on the inside of the windows. 

“Merry Christmas!” she said, her voice shaky, and he squeezed against her door as a car passed.

“Uh,” he said, and tried to weigh being _ nice,  _ which Steve preferred, but which probably meant _ listening,  _ against his instinct to call her bullshit. “Bullshit,” he said, raising his voice to be heard.

“I-it’s Christmas eve,” she gulped, and started to cry.

“Yeah,” he nodded, taking a last draw on his cigarette, and tossing it behind him into the snowy road. “Doesn’t look too merry, though.” She had to be one of the actual parents of Steve’s kids-by-monster-hunting, he was fairly sure.

“I’m _ sorry!”  _ she yelled, more at the steering wheel than him, and flailed her arms. “This is—this is _ crap!  _ Everything is—everything is _ crap,  _ it’s gone to _ shit,  _ I don’t—I don’t—”

“Uh-huh,” Billy said, raising his eyebrows. “Who were you tryin’ to call?”

“My _ kids!”  _ she yelled, smacking the steering wheel again, which put her as probably the littlest one’s mom, he thought, since he didn’t think Henderson had a brother. Or Lucas, he thought, grimacing. _ You never know, look at me and Susan, maybe he looks nothing like her.  _ She sighed. __ “And I’m _ out of dimes.” _

“...I might have a dime,” Billy said, jutting his hip in order to dig around in his tightest jeans, the ones he’d worn thinking Steve would peel off him. He found a hole in his pocket, and sighed. 

“It’s no use,” she groaned, clicking her lighter about eleven times trying to light a cigarette, until he gave up and grabbed his lighter instead, holding it out. Between the wind and her shivering so hard, he had to chase the end of the cigarette around, and she groaned, starting to snicker. “Oh, jesus. I’m gonna freeze to death on Christmas Eve.”

“I can’t give you one thin dime?” Billy laughed, catching a little of her hysteria, and laughing. He wiped a snowflake off his eyelashes, his cheeks completely numb.

“I have to get _ home,”  _ she sighed, leaning her head back to blow smoke at the ceiling. “I got...I got dinner to cook…” she groaned, wiping her eyes. “...somehow.”

Billy stood up to frown at the front of the store. Every time the doors opened there was a wind-muffled riff of _ Jingle Bells  _ or _ Winter Wonderland,  _ and he looked up to see Steve still hadn’t come out. He sighed. “Maybe you can use the phone in there?”

She sniffled, nodding. “Probably.” She took a long drag and blew out, frowning at him, and rubbing her hands together. “...you one of Jonathan’s friends?” she shouted over the noise of a passing truck. 

_ Hell no,  _ Billy thought, and cleared his throat. “Steve Harrington’s.”

She raised her eyebrows, nodding. “What are you doing out this late? Just out offering women dimes you don’t have?”

Billy snorted, brushing the snow off his shoulders, and rubbing his arms. “That’s my plan, yeah. Nah, Steve’s shopping for tomorrow. I guess we’re burning a turkey.”

She blinked, and leaned closer. “What? ...you two are making a turkey? Here, come around, get in.”

“Uh,” Billy said, shoving his hands in his pockets, but he walked around and climbed in as she unlocked it, so she could roll up the window. “Y-yeah, he wants a turkey,” he said again, in the quiet of the car, watching her shiver. “I mean, Steve’s parents, they’re always out of town—”

“Oh, he’s going to your house?” she asked, smiling over. “That’s nice of your mom.”

Billy swallowed down _ she’s not my fucking mom,  _ and _ it’s nothing to do with her,  _ and _ fuck you,  _ and settled on, “N-no. I’m going to his place.”

“Oh,” she nodded, rubbing her hands up and down her thighs, trying to get her blood moving. “Slumber party. Well, kiddo, I wish you more luck than I have ever had, trying to cook turkeys.” She pulled her knees up, hugging them, and sighed. “First turkey ever I burnt the whole outside, had to open all the windows...carve it outside ‘cause of the smoke...but when we stuck the knife in, it was still bleeding. Goddamn...burn victim on the table. Nearly called 911 for the turkey.” Billy was snickering, but he nearly lost it as she sighed out a trail of smoke, and said, “It was so raw inside I nearly tried CPR.”

“Oh no,” he wheezed, leaning against the side of her car. “We can just eat mashed potatoes, I guess.”

“My mom suggested I try adding a little garlic,” she said, curling up tighter. “She meant _ powdered  _ garlic. _ Powdered.  _ We kept hitting raw garlic cloves in the mashed potatoes…”

Billy groaned into his arm, leaning against the side of her car, but couldn’t stop sniggering. 

“Want me to go in and make a call?” he asked her, and she swallowed hard, her eyes welling up again. Billy froze, lifting his hands for some stupid reason. 

“It’s no good,” she moaned into her knees, waving her cigarette around. “What am I gonna do?! Even if Jonathan comes and gets me, I can’t—I can’t cook—”

“...you didn’t get any better?!” Billy asked, startled, imagining decades of bleeding turkey corpses, like a battlefield.

“I _ did  _ get better,” she snarled, waving the cigarette at him. “I did! It was...it was pretty okay last year, there were good parts! It was _ edible!  _ But how the _ hell  _ am I supposed to cook with no _ power,  _ huh, answer me _ that,  _ smartass.”

Billy blinked. “...your power’s out?”

“The storm,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “Knocked a tree over, broke the _ kitchen window—”  _ she sniffled. “And now my _ car  _ won’t start—” She laughed sharply, looking away, and crossed her arms. “Some mother I am, I can’t even keep the _ heat  _ on.”

Billy climbed out, checking again for Steve, and he was _ finally there.  _ “HARRINGTON!” he yelled. “HARRINGTON! Over here!” Steve stopped halfway to his car, frowning around, and Billy slammed the door and ran up as Steve was unloading like 900 bags of groceries into his car. “C’mere,” Billy said, “It’s—that kid’s—mom!”

“What?” Steve asked, squinting, and Billy leaned their heads together to hiss “—the _ monster house  _ lady.” Steve stared at him. “Joyce Byers? She—there were just _ monsters,  _ she doesn’t have a _ monster house—” _

“Yeah, that one,” Billy agreed, rolling his eyes and yanking Steve’s arm until he came along to Joyce Byers’ half-buried car.

“Oh _ no,”  _ she whispered.

“Oh yeah,” Billy told her. “You got your jumper cables, Harrington?”

“Always do,” Steve said, raising his eyebrows, before leaning to sweep the snow off her passenger window. “Uh, hey, Mrs. Byers.”

Billy was considering his holidays with Steve as _ he’d  _ planned them—naked the whole time, and no cooking at all—and sighed, remembering Steve agonizing over the selection of potatoes. He knocked on the roof of her car. “We’ll bring his car ‘round, okay?”

_ “I’m  _ the grown-up here!” she wailed, then closed her eyes. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Yeah,” Billy told her, before walking around to put an arm around Steve. “So,” he said, talking in his normal voice, but it was like a whisper with all the wind. 

“Sorry,” Steve told him. “I know you wanna get back, but I can’t just leave her there—”

“Hey, I called you over,” Billy hissed, and Steve grinned at him, his gaze dropping to Billy’s lips as he licked his own. Billy’s whole body warmed, and he wanted to just grab Steve Harrington and haul him behind the building and—he took a slow breath, willing himself to think about something else. “Uh, so. You don’t—you got no idea how to cook all this food.”

“I can figure it out!” Steve protested. “I can _ read—” _

“And her kitchen just got smashed by a tree,” Billy continued. Steve’s mouth dropped open. “She’s got no power, and it’s cold, she said.”

Steve’s eyes were wide and worried, and Billy smashed the lid on the coffin of his sex weekend. 

“Isn’t that kid of hers, like, ten? You gonna leave him with no heat on Christmas?”

“No!” Steve breathed. “Uh, that okay, though? I know—I know you wanted…” he trailed off, raising his eyebrows with a grin that was _ unfair,  _ given the situation, and Billy elbowed him. 

“I want you to have your damn turkey,” Billy growled. “Ham. Whatever.”

“I did also buy a turkey,” Steve admitted guiltily, and Billy kicked his ass lightly as it walked away.

When they got back to Joyce, she was starting to turn blue, so Steve bundled her into his passenger seat while they ran his engine. “Come for Christmas,” he said.

“What?!” she squawked.

“Bring...everybody,” Steve sighed, and Billy realized too late he’d doomed them to a whole day with the man Steve’s ex was dating. “Show me how to cook a turkey?”

Joyce opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, then groaned, tipping forward to lean against the glove compartment. “I invited _ Hopper,”  _ she finally yelled, flailing her arms, and Billy started snickering at Steve’s frown of determination. 

“But you don’t have _ heat,”  _ Steve pointed out. “Invite ‘em over, I got a big-ass turkey. Eleven can hang out with Will.”

“I’m supposed to pick Will up from Dustin’s place,” she sighed into the door of the glove compartment, and Billy bit back a snicker, glancing at Steve—sure enough, when the pay phone rang through to the Hendersons, Dustin was appalled.

“You sayin’ I’m not invited, Steve Harrington?” he hissed. “You _ know  _ what my mom’s got planned? I’m gonna be on the floor next to the cat, choking down some _ goddamn Fancy Feast,  _ because you can’t invite your _ best friend  _ to come to your stupid—”

Steve pressed the phone to his chest, and frowned at Billy, wedged against him in the relative warmth of the phone booth. “Dustin wants to come,” Steve said, as though Billy hadn’t heard him. Or met Dustin Henderson.

“So invite him,” Billy shrugged, rubbing his knuckles along Steve’s ribs, and wishing Joyce Byers wasn’t watching them from the car, blowing on her fingers. Steve licked his lips, watching him back, and Billy hissed, _ “Steve.”  _

“Right,” Steve said, jerking back to Earth, and lifted the phone again. “If you’re coming, you gotta bring food.”

“Mom’s not gonna let me make a mess, that’s why I gotta—”

“Bring food,” Billy yelled into the receiver, and hung up. He turned his face so Joyce couldn’t see, kissed his fingers, watching Steve’s face, and saw his adam’s apple jerk as he swallowed. Billy reached up and brushed the kiss over Steve’s jaw, and then elbowed the phone booth door open, stumbling back out. 

“Love you,” Steve whispered, and Billy shushed him, bumping their shoulders together. 

He’d been with Steve Harrington since the previous morning, and his cheeks hurt from smiling.

When they got back in Steve’s car, Joyce was starting to uncoil, going limp like her strings had been cut as she sprawled in front of Steve’s heat and defrost. Billy climbed in behind Steve, listening to Steve try to convince her to bring her kids over that night, to where there was _ heat. _

Billy had a sudden thought. _ “Harrington,”  _ he hissed, pushing himself forward to grab the back of Steve’s seat, “—we don’t have a _ tree.” _

“Oh _ shit,”  _ Steve whispered, his eyes wide, and Joyce started _ snickering  _ at them. “Go get everybody,” he told Joyce, his jaw set. “We’ll get a tree.”

She just smiled at them, cocking her head, and then took a deep shuddery breath and rubbed her face. “Okay,” she nodded. “I’ll get Jonathan to bring some lights. We got a ton of Christmas lights—”

For some reason, Steve winced at this, but she reached over and squeezed his arm. She held it for a long second, then cleared her throat, and climbed out of the car.

Steve nodded, gripping the steering wheel of the car, and Billy barely waited for Joyce to turn away before he hugged Steve from behind, seat and all. “What’s your problem,” he asked, but Steve laughed softly. 

“Just wanna kiss you,” he said, grinning in the rearview mirror. 

Joyce’s car behind them sputtered to life, and they climbed out to disconnect the cables. 

“Maybe don’t turn off the engine ‘til you make it to our house,” Steve told her, yelling as a car went by, and Billy’s heart thudded in his chest, sending his blood to his face and dick and _ nowhere else  _ when Steve said _ our house.  _ He tried to hide his face by turning back to Steve’s car and lighting a cigarette.

“Oh,” she laughed a little jaggedly. “It, um, it’s usually...fine. I just should have started it on my lunch break, you know. In this weather. I was a little…” 

“We’re going to go get a tree,” Steve told her, firmly. “You have to bring everyone tonight and help us decorate it. I think I made ornaments in school once,” he muttered. “We could make ornaments?”

“You really don’t have to,” Joyce laughed, shaking her head, poised halfway in the car. “Just get a tiny one!”

“I’m getting a _ huge tree!”  _ Steve hollered back, his feet spread like he was ready to fight for his ginormous tree, and Billy crunched closer through the half-packed snow on the sidewalk and grabbed him around the waist. 

“Let’s go,” he whispered. “We gotta go actually buy it.”

“Bring lots of lights!” Steve was yelling at Joyce, who had her head on her steering wheel. It looked like she was...laughing, Billy hoped.

By the time Billy got the ENTIRE GROCERY STORE Steve had bought into the kitchen, Steve was in the front room with the _ twelve foot tree,  _ trying to get the door they’d had to take off back onto its hinges. He’d drug out six dusty boxes labeled things like ‘galand’ and ‘ligt stands’ and Billy was wondering whether they were _ stands  _ or _ strands  _ when Steve came up behind him, sliding his arms around Billy’s waist, and kissing down his neck. 

“Thanks,” he whispered, and Billy leaned into it, letting his head fall to the side. 

It was warming again, with the door back in place and closed against the snow, and Billy squirmed around to face Steve, pulling him closer to kiss him open-mouthed before everyone showed up. “What’re you thanking me for,” he whispered.

“Helping me with this shit,” Steve whispered back, kissing him again. “Helping Mrs. Byers.”

Steve’s kisses always went straight to Billy’s dick, and he groaned, stepping a few inches back and clearing his throat. “Damn,” Billy said, hoarsely. “Well. You said it was _ our house,”  _ he told Steve, smirking. “Gotta back up my _ man,  _ right.”

“Oh shit, right,” Steve mumbled, and sighed. “Wish it _ was  _ our house. They don’t need to come back,” he laughed, and it had the wistful note in it that had had Billy just about willing to climb out a window every damn day and just take whatever his dad dished out. “I’d rather have you,” Steve said, grabbing the back of Billy’s neck to yank him in for a quick peck on the lips before he stalked over to stare down at the boxes. “Next Christmas I just want you.”

“...careful what you wish for,” Billy told him, crouching to open a box. It contained cassettes, and Billy smushed the lid closed fast, but not fast enough, and in _ moments  _ Steve had the house filled with _ John Denver and the Muppets. _

“I’m going home,” Billy muttered into the next box, and then Steve grabbed him and spun him around on the hardwood floor of the front room, and Billy yelled “Fuck! Augh! _ Fuck  _ you!” but Steve laughed, dancing around him until Billy submitted to ‘dancing’, trying to avoid Steve’s elbows, and not get his stockinged feet stomped by Steve’s bare ones. 

“Don’t go home, babe,” Steve told him, laughing, and Billy sighed in his arms.

“...like I _ would.” _

There were ornaments. Glass, mostly, and some cut-out plastic ones of Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown. There was a glass stork that said ‘Baby’s first Christmas, 1966’, and one with a picture of Steve on Santa’s lap staring at the camera with huge stricken eyes like he was being flashed in a different sense of the word. 

“Come on, help me get the tree up, first,” Steve told him, and Billy nodded, pulling one out with a picture of Steve’s mom and dad, maybe. They looked like movie stars in a glamor shot for a magazine, and Steve looked maybe four, staring into the middle distance. “Billy Hargrove,” Steve called, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Billeeeeeeeeeee.”

Billy bit his lips as he got to his feet, and threw his arm around Steve’s shoulders, squeezing him hard. “I’m here, I’m here. Too bad we can’t get the wood stove going.”

“Oh,” Steve blinked at it. “That’d be nice, huh. There are probably pellets somewhere. Now,” Steve said, leaning back into Billy’s chest. He steepled his fingers, and Billy registered that he’d dumped three of the other boxes out in a mess of stockings, lights, and a hollow light-up snowman. 

“Our tree is too big for the tree stand I found,” Steve said, like that was a _ normal problem to have,  _ and Billy started snickering again. “No, no, it’ll work,” Steve mumbled, eyeing the tree and the ceiling, “—I’ll hang it from the ceiling. On a wire. And—and we can stick it in a bucket. It’ll last longer,” he announced, “—like cut flowers!”

“When is Christmas, Harrington,” Billy whispered back. “Today is Christmas eve, so how long does the tree need to last? _ One day,  _ Harrington. _ One.” _

“It’ll _ work,”  _ Steve hissed back, and Billy waved as his boyfriend went off to war, a soldier searching the garage for weapons in the fight against a twelve-foot tree. 

“Be brave,” Billy called, and Steve flipped him off, shutting the garage door on “—our prayers go with you!” While Steve was gone, Billy ran his fingers through his hair, and sat down to check the lights, plugging each strand into the wall. He groaned at the two that didn’t work, and considered testing every bulb...and then tiptoed to the kitchen, and wedged them into the very bottom of the trash.

Steve returned triumphant, drill in hand, and Billy got the hell out from under the ladder, stomping off to the garage himself to find an extension cord for all the lights. When he returned, Steve was trying to balance the tree _ on top of the bucket,  _ and Billy tossed the extension cord aside and ran to help, so Steve could climb the ladder and _ wire  _ the damned thing to the ceiling. 

It looked ridiculous. “Feel like I’m in a fucking Macy’s,” Billy growled, and Steve beamed at him. 

“Yank on it!” he suggested, and Billy kicked the ladder. Steve swore, glowering down.

“I’m not _ yanking  _ on your monster tree, you think I wanna die like a vampire, stake through my chest,” Billy muttered, and Steve jumped down and hugged him, his sweater warm, his face cold from the air in the garage. Billy groaned into his shoulder. “...we’re boning under this thing, right,” he asked, long-suffering, and Steve blinked, then nodded.

“Yeah, I mean,” he cleared his throat, biting back a smirk. “Of course.”

“Okay,” Billy sighed again, and set his shoulders. “Okay, then.”

“Fucking _ love  _ you,” Steve said fondly, and Billy glared at him, and then the piles of lights. 

“Yeah?! Yeah, you—you fucking _ better,”  _ he hissed, when the knock came at the door. 

Jonathan and Will Byers wandered in with sleeping bags to stare at Billy’s armload of lights, and he could hear Joyce’s horrified voice when she saw the massive ham in the kitchen, next to the turkey they could have shoved Will inside of. 

“Steve’s possessed,” Billy broke it to them, and Steve yelled back something about the spirit of Christmas. Billy nodded slowly, raising his eyebrows at the Byers’, and saw them realize they were as doomed as he was. 

“Uh,” said Jonathan, clearing his throat. “Lemme help with the lights?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Merry Christmas! Thank you so much for wandering in! Lemme know if you liked my story--I lovelovelove hearing from people! Kudos! Short comments! Long comments! Questions! Constructive criticism! Comments as extra kudos! Thanks so, so much! XD**  
>  (I try to reply to each one, but if you don't want a response to your comment then please say "No reply please" or "Whisper" so I'll know not to reply.) ****  
> [Reblog this fic!](https://platypanthewriter.tumblr.com/post/639165790979014656/my-yuletide-exchange-fic)  
>  Like my writing? =D Follow my writing progress and WIPs on Tumblr at [Platypan the writer!](https://platypanthewriter.tumblr.com/) Subscribe to the Harringrove without everything else at [Unrelated Harringrove Works Series!](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624003)


	2. Chapter 2

Dustin and his mom showed up ten minutes later, and Joyce threw her arms around Mrs. Henderson before dragging her into the kitchen and setting off another round of shocked gasps. Dustin walked in and burst out laughing at them all silently lighting up the _ twelve foot  _ tree and enduring the Muppets.

“Fuck you,” Billy muttered, passing a string of lights to Will. 

“Jonathan, my man, we _ definitely  _ need pictures of all this,” Dustin cackled, and Will brightened. 

Billy was turning his glare on _ Dustin  _ when the main Christmas offender put an arm around him, hauling him close to whisper “I’m gonna take a look at Joyce’s car, cover for me.”

“What,” Billy said, staring at the tree. 

“What?” asked Will, and Steve bent, pulling Billy with him. 

“I’m gonna take a look at why your mom’s car won’t start.”

“Is that something you...know how to do?” Jonathan asked warily, and Steve raised his eyebrows. 

“Yeah, yeah, he’s good at shit,” Billy interrupted, sighing. “Fucking straight A’s in _ shop.” _

“El and Hopper are coming over,” Dustin said, grinning, and Steve squeezed Billy’s shoulders. 

“Perfect, they can help,” he said happily, and Billy wondered what had _ happened.  _ Where he’d gone wrong, and ended up in Christmasy hell.

Steve slunk off to the garage—Will helped by stealing Joyce’s keys out of her purse while she sorted piles of food, and they drove her car in next to Steve’s—and Billy and Jonathan strung lights around the trunk in awkward silence until another knock came on the door, and Billy dropped the lights to run and get it, opening the door in hopes of directing _ Hopper  _ at the damn tree, and finding...Max and Lucas, on their bikes. 

They stared back at him with set jaws, and Billy tried to figure out what was going on. “Did something happen?” he hissed at Max, closing the door behind him, and rubbing his arms in the chill air.

“Yeah,” she raised her eyebrows. “You’re throwing a huge fuckoff Christmas party. Let us in.”

“No,” Billy stared at her. “No, it’s not—”

“You’re not _ letting us in?  _ She’s your _ sister,”  _ Lucas hissed, and Billy groaned and yanked the doorknob, letting the door fall open behind him. 

“It’s not a _ party,” _ he hissed as they elbowed past him. “People keep _ coming,  _ I don’t—”

“We’re here!” Max yelled, and Dustin cheered, and then Will and the moms cheered, and Lucas clambered up the ladder to grab the lights from Will. Max started digging through the boxes again, Jonathan got his _ camera,  _ and Billy backed back into the kitchen, where Joyce and Mrs. Henderson were staring into the fridge. 

“He’s lost it,” Billy told them, leaning over the door. “I think he bought the whole store. Did he even get anything you can put together? I think he had some magazine with recipes—”

“...I can make hors d'oeuvres,” said Mrs. Henderson, rolling up her sleeves. “And pie. The turkey will be cold if we cook it tonight—”

“I think there’s stuff for sweet potato casserole,” Joyce muttered, hands on her hips. 

“I can make that,” Billy offered with a sigh, imagining Steve’s eyes lighting up at a whole Christmas spread.

Their eyes narrowed as they surveyed him. 

Billy shrugged. “Or some pie?” 

The doorbell rang just then, though, and Billy wandered in a daze to let Hopper and El in. He leaned out to frown up and down the road, just in case the Wheelers all showed up, or maybe a busload of scientists, from the lab. _ Or Santa,  _ he thought, ready for anything.

“The hell is all this?” he heard Hopper ask, and Joyce started laughing. 

As Billy wandered back in, he saw El pelt over to Max, Lucas, and Will, who were doing a respectable job of lighting the tree, and Hopper lean in between the two moms to start discussing the menu. “Sounds like Billy can cook too,” Joyce said, her eyes narrowed. 

“I’m sorry I left him alone in the grocery store,” Billy said again, and Mrs. Henderson smiled. 

“Sounds like if you hadn’t, Joyce would still be stranded on the side of the road!”

“Wait, _ what,”  _ Hopper asked, and Joyce distracted him by handing him all the cans for pumpkin pie. Hopper huffed, glowering down at her, but turned to dig around in the fridge for butter, and Billy got him the flour, and got back a grumbled lecture on proper pie crust. 

“My mom used vodka,” he offered, and Hopper frowned deeply at him. 

“...’cause it evaporates out,” Hopper said. “Leaves just the good stuff. Smart lady.”

“Waste of vodka, though,” Billy muttered, rattling around for the can opener when he was blinded by a camera flash. 

Joyce yelped like she had her mouth full, and Billy frowned over to see she had an olive on every finger, and she was trying not to choke laughing. Hopper threatened her with the wooden spoon, there were more flashes, and Mrs. Henderson patted Billy’s shoulder. 

“Could you help me move some things around?” she asked, and he nodded, feeling weirdly lightheaded as Hopper squeezed his shoulder to thank him, and Joyce patted his hair, and Mrs. Henderson thanked him _ again.  _

“You’re a lifesaver,” Joyce told him, as he helped her chop green beans. Billy nodded, frowning at her. Hopper said “Atta kid,” as Billy got a pan under the pie just as it threatened to tip, and when Mrs. Henderson accepted his bowl of chopped vegetables and said _ “Bless you,”  _ he fled to the garage, his hands shaking. 

Steve’s legs were sticking out from under the car, and Billy dropped to lie on the floor, staring underneath. “Harrington,” he hissed.

“Whumf?” Steve asked, looking over. He had a plastic cap in his mouth. Billy stared back at him, took a deep breath, and nodded, scrambling back to his feet. “What? _ Billy!”  _ Steve yelled, and Billy scrubbed at his face with his hands, and straightened his shirt. “Wait, Billy,” Steve’s voice said, closer, and Billy let himself be tugged backwards into a tight hug. “You okay?” Steve asked, and Billy laughed, nodding. 

“Need me to come help?” Steve asked, and Billy shook his head, smiling as Steve turned him by the shoulders to see his face, frowning. “You’re quiet. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Billy huffed a laugh, his face still warm from being treated like one of their _ kids.  _

Steve narrowed his eyes, and then cupped Billy’s face with his stinky motor-oil hands, and kissed him softly. Billy lost _ time  _ when Steve pulled shit like that, he was pretty sure, the same way he didn’t know where he’d been sometimes, between his dad getting home and going to bed—but it was only a few seconds, with Steve, and he _ liked  _ it, chasing the feeling and Steve’s mouth as Steve stepped back, laughing, and Billy hugged him close again around the neck. He always came to himself safe, with Steve.

Billy stumbled back into the kitchen with his cheeks aching from his wide smile, and Joyce...stared at him, for a long moment, before snaking a hand out like a striking cobra and dipping it in Hopper’s pumpkin pie mix (he swore, and smacked her wrist with the spoon)and poking it all down Billy’s _ nose.  _

She grinned at him. “Go wash your face.”

“What the _ fuck,”  _ Billy hissed, as she shoved him back out of the kitchen, but when he got into the bathroom and glared into the mirror, his stomach roiled, because Steve had left black fingerprints where he’d cupped Billy’s face, and there was a smear of oil where he’d run his thumb across Billy’s lower lip. Billy’s fingers shook as he washed it all off.

He forced himself to leave the bathroom, finally, when he heard Mrs. Henderson ask where he was, and walked back in the kitchen feeling like he was wading through cement. 

Joyce— _ Mrs. Byers,  _ he corrected himself, reminding himself to be _ respectful,  _ at least—pulled him over and _ ruffled his hair,  _ and when Hopper grabbed Billy’s arm, he only moved past the knife in Billy’s hand, and let go. Billy watched him walk by, the knife loose in his fingers, and Hopper patted his back. 

Max gave him a weird look when she walked by with Will and Lucas, hunting up more lights, and found him cranking the apple corer Hopper had found and brought over for apple pie. “The hell are you doing,” she whispered.

“Making a _ fucking pie,”  _ he hissed back, and her eyes narrowed. “I’m giving you the slice with the apples I got off a wicked witch,” he told her, turning the handle, and watching the apple skin spiral away hypnotically. “She said it tastes like sleeping death. Yum.”

“...fuck you,” she said, after some consideration. “Lemme try that.”

“Hopper told me to make pie,” Billy told her, biting back a grin, and she growled. 

“Share your toys,” said Mrs. Henderson, and Joyce and Hopper snickered, glancing at each other, and back at Billy, and he had to look away fast because it looked like they might _ kiss,  _ which he did not need to watch. 

“Fine,” Billy said, getting up to let Max try the apple corer/slicer/thing. “If you’re a shit,” he told her under his breath, “—I can figure out how to use this on you.”

“Don’t hurt your brain trying,” she shot back, eyes sparkling as she shoved an apple over the spikes to hold it in place, and began cranking like a demon so apple juice sprayed across the table. 

Billy wandered out into the front room to avoid the apple carnage, and the tree looked _ good.  _ He couldn’t see the bucket—somebody’d wadded something red up under there to hide it—there were enough lights that it lit the room by itself, and Lucas was up the ladder directing like a drill sergeant while Dustin made commentary on the ornaments. Will passed them up, mumbling things like “Sir, yes, sir,” as he swayed slowly to the Muppets. Jonathan wandered by Billy and took some pictures in the kitchen, and Joyce and Hopper started swearing, so probably that was a success too. 

“Huh,” said Dustin, frowning down at the ornaments in his hands, and Billy sidled over to look. 

“What.”

“Oh, no, just…” the kid glanced up, saw Billy, and glowered. “Nothing. Why the hell are _ you  _ here?”

“I’m the one who told Steve to invite _ you,  _ so suck it,” Billy told him, crouching to look at the ornaments. “What’s wrong, they broken?”

“Noooo,” Dustin drew the word out, screwing his whole face up at Billy suspiciously. “They’re just, y’know. Like, Hallmark, they put dates on the ornaments, right?”

“Yeah, I can read numbers, shithead,” Billy said, reaching in for a little Rudolph from 1976. 

“Well there’s none from after 1976, fucknuts,” Dustin whispered back, and Billy frowned into the box. “Bunch from before that. Then it just kinda stops. Also, we’re almost out.”

“Shit, I coulda gotten some more,” Billy muttered, glancing around at the layers of dust on the boxes, the yellowed newspaper wrapping, and pushing down the idea of Steve’s Christmases _ stopping  _ when he was ten _.  _ He frowned from the box to the tree, and Dustin snorted a laugh. 

“F’I’d’ve known you had a _ tree,  _ I coulda brought some,” Dustin whispered.

“We _ didn’t  _ have a tree,” Billy hissed back. “I found Joyce Byers freezing to death and he went _ nuts.  _ I’d have grabbed something—”

“We could make cookies,” Dustin bit his lips, thinking. “Popcorn balls. My mom made caramel popcorn balls last Halloween.”

Billy nodded, thinking. “We could make paper chains.”

“I can make snowflakes,” said El, dropping to sit between them, and pushing the mostly-empty box towards Will. “We made them in school.”

“I can find some paper,” Billy said, getting to his feet, and running upstairs to the electric typewriter in Steve’s parent’s room. He hauled a stack downstairs just in time to see Dustin climb up to sit on the kitchen counter next to his mom, and lean to whisper in her ear as she hissed at him and pointed to the ground like he was a misbehaving cat. 

“Will has some, too,” said Eleven, yanking the stack out of his hands, and trotting over to Will, who had dropped next to the tree with his backpack, a stack of construction paper, and scissors. 

“Pies are in the oven,” Hopper announced, wiping his hands dry on his pants. “Who’s hungry?” There was a chorus of “Me!”s, and he nodded. “Sandwiches,” he said. “Who wants a PB & J?” There was another chorus of “Meee!”s, and he nodded, grabbing the bread, as Dustin and his mom flanked Billy, asking about popcorn, and Joyce started digging through the fridge chanting “Jelly! Jelly! Jel—ew, what? Jelly…”

“We have some microwave popcorn,” Billy told them, warily, and Mrs. Henderson cocked her head, pursing her lips. “It’ll do,” she said. “Dustin, find the waxed paper.”

“On it,” he saluted, and dove between Hopper’s feet to dig through drawers. There was a lot of crashing and swearing from that direction for a bit, and Billy ducked back to the door to the garage to see Steve. 

“It’s insane out there,” he said, stepping into the silence of the garage, broken only by Steve’s muffled humming. “...Harrington?” Billy asked, and Steve’s head popped up near Joyce’s hood. “You need any help?”

“Fuck you and your shitty Camaro,” Steve muttered, narrowing his eyes. “You just wanna bend over the engine so your ass sticks out and I drop something on my foot.”

“...yeah, probably,” Billy said, grinning.

“Just tweaking her battery terminals,” he said, and Billy nodded leaning to kiss his boyfriend’s head. “Hey,” Steve said, grinning up. “Thought I’d, y’know, change the oil, all that.”

“You want a sandwich?” Billy asked, squatting next to him, and reaching out to roll up the sleeve that had slid down Steve Harrington’s engine-oil streaked arm. Steve leaned over to kiss him, warm and soft in the cold air of the garage, and Billy scooted closer, sliding his tongue over the edges of Steve’s teeth, and tasting probably...more engine grease. “Hopper’s making PB&Js,” he whispered against Steve’s lips, and Steve grinned.

“Sure,” he whispered back. “Why’s Hopper here? Now? Aren’t they coming tomorr—”

“Everyone is here,” Billy groaned, letting his head drop on Steve’s shoulder. _ “Everyone.  _ The pope might be coming—President Nixon—”

“Holy shit,” Steve snickered. “Yeah, bring me a sandwich, little woman.”

“Y’know most murderers are the spouse,” Billy told him, rolling his eyes, and Steve _ giggled,  _ grinning. 

“...you really like Christmas, huh,” Billy sighed. 

“Nah,” Steve said, _ lying.  _ “I’m just—this is kind of fun, y’know?”

“Fixing her car for _ Christmas,”  _ Billy said flatly. “You should tell Shortness and Camera Perv to vacuum it out.”

“Ohhh,” Steve’s eyes widened. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s good, yeah.” He leaned in close again, warm against Billy’s side, his breath hot against Billy’s cheek, and kissed his jaw. “You like Christmas too, huh?”

_ I really don’t,  _ Billy thought, eyeing his boyfriend’s bright smile. “Yeah,” he lied in return. “Yeah, I, uh, I have...memories. Of Christmas.” Steve looked away, laughing uncertainly, and Billy yanked him close, squeezing his ribs. “There’s pies in the oven,” Billy told him. “Will’s dancing around to the Muppets. I think Hopper and Joyce almost kissed over the sandwiches—” Steve snorted, letting his head fall against Billy’s neck, and nuzzling in with a sigh. Billy stroked the back of his neck, and kissed his ear. “Max is murdering some more apples, I think,” he whispered, feeling Steve’s laugh hot against his skin. “—no idea why. She’s gonna be in slasher movies one day.”

Steve hugged him tighter. “You think it’s gonna screw everything up, having us here?” he asked softly, and Billy cocked his head, frowning at the wall. 

“...it’s your _ house,  _ dumbass,” he said into the cool strands of Steve’s hair, wondering _ what the hell. _

“Yeah,” Steve sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

“What the shit, then,” Billy asked. “Respectfully.”

Steve burst into snickers again, scooting closer until he was practically in Billy’s lap, and Billy sat on the ground to steady them. “Feel like I stole Christmas,” he mumbled, and Billy squinted at the wall again, opening his mouth to ask for clarification. “Stole _ their  _ Christmas,” Steve sighed. “We coulda put plastic over the broken windows. They could have had the Christmas they _ wanted—” _

“Jesus Christ Whittaker,” Billy said, ignoring Steve laughing _ harder.  _ “They’re all having a great time out there, you—defective. Fucking. Dimwit. _ Doofus.  _ Is that why you’re _ hiding in the garage?” _

“It’s a _ family thing!”  _ Steve hissed. “Maybe they didn’t—”

“Look, we’re gonna make some goddamn Christmas cookies,” Billy told him, “—and you’re gonna come out of the _ fucking garage  _ and watch something _ irritating  _ on TV, and put on more _ torture music—” _

“You _ hate  _ Christmas,” Steve wheezed, like he’d taken a blow, and Billy gritted his teeth. 

“Don’t make me _ spank  _ your ass,” he told Steve, who was laughing too hard to talk. Billy pushed him away enough to stare into his wide brown eyes. “I love _ you  _ a hell of a lot more than I care about Christmas. You want a turkey? I will cook you a goddamn turkey. You need to know they want you here? I will sit on your ass while they sing—” Billy tried to think of the _ worst  _ of all Christmas songs, and had too many options. “—Jingle Bells,” he said. “You want a _ fucking reindeer  _ I will go _ bludgeon one  _ with those ski poles, okay?! Fuck.”

“Love you too,” Steve said, going all misty-eyed and goopy at the most _ annoying time ever. _

Billy leaned in and kissed him, batting his dirty fingers away with one hand as he lifted Steve’s chin with the other. “Yeah, yeah,” he whispered, rolling his eyes. “You’re full of _ Christmas spirit.  _ I’m gonna get you a sandwich.” 

“I still love you when it’s not Christmas,” Steve muttered, rubbing his eyes on his rolled-up sleeve. “Don’t murder a reindeer.”

“What about that Rudolph one,” Billy asked, narrowing his eyes, and running his knuckles over where Steve’s cheeks were pink from the cold air in the garage. “Lot to answer for. Talk about annoying.”

“Don’t kill Rudolph,” Steve whispered, leaning into Billy’s hand for another kiss.

“What if I drop his body on Frosty,” Billy countered, and Steve raised his eyebrows, considering.

The faint sounds of Muppets and shouting suddenly blasted as the garage door clicked open, and Billy’s heart pounded in his chest, grateful they were tucked back behind Joyce Byers’ car.

“Billy?” came her voice. “Steve? Don’t just hide in here—”

“We’re not,” Steve said, standing, and hurriedly straightening his clothes like a character in one of Susan’s Edwardian romances, who’d been interrupted in the lap of a duke. Billy stared at him, then at Joyce, who was frowning at them.

“Uh,” she said, clearing her throat. “Dustin’s mom was going to come in, so—” she said, grimacing, and Billy realized she _ wasn’t going to say anything,  _ and felt so lightheaded with relief he had to reach out and steady himself on her car. 

“We’ll be right out,” he told her. _ We weren’t doing anything, I swear,  _ he thought, glancing from her doubtful expression to Steve, who was still tucking the shirt in his pants, and yanking at his sweater like Billy’d just been halfway to third base. He was pink right down his neck, and Billy longed to slide his hands up under his boyfriend’s clothes, and see how warm he was with the embarrassment of nearly getting caught by Joyce Byers. 

“Uh, yeah,” Steve mumbled unhelpfully, touching his cheek where Billy’s hand had been, and Billy groaned. 

“Go clean up,” he hissed. “Put a different sweater on.”

“Oh,” Steve looked down. “Yeah, I should—probably should do that.”

Joyce turned and left before Steve, and Billy watched them go, wondering whether she was still deciding what to _ do,  _ or whether she was giving them a break, for Christmas, and then she’d kind of—be a little distant, and Billy’d know it was because she’d caught him with marks where Steve’s fingers had held him close for a kiss. 

_ She wouldn’t tell my dad,  _ he told himself, because he’d seen Will flinch when Hopper reached over him to hang an ornament, and Jonathan curl in on himself, a little, when Hopper yelled _ sandwiches.  _ Billy drew a long breath. _ It’s safe, it’s safe,  _ he chanted, silently moving his lips. _ It’s safe, we’re safe from that, she wouldn’t, we’re safe from him. _

He’d get her alone, he decided. Until then, there was no need to tell Steve they’d fucked up.

Billy walked out of the garage and got snagged by Mrs. Henderson, who wanted to know where the sugar was, and thought _ Billy  _ was gonna know, like he _ lived  _ there. He handed it over, and found her a pan, and a mixing bowl, and then Max kicked him right in the ass and ran, and he chased her out to the front room. 

She slid to a stop in her stockings, waving at the _ sparsely  _ decorated tree. There were two short, fluffy gold garlands, and for some reason a lot of wide, glittery ribbon, but even then, it looked like the decorators for a 5th Avenue department store had been kidnapped before they’d gotten rolling. 

“It doesn’t look...too bad,” Billy said guiltily, eyeing the department-store sized tree with one measly box of ornaments. 

“It looks dumb as hell,” Lucas said, frowning up. “I’m thinking...paper chains.”

“I’ve got colors,” Will said, cutting carefully around a snowflake, and Max held a hand out to Billy.

“Scissors,” she said, and he glared at her, but stomped over to the phone and grabbed the pair out of the pen jar and smacked the handles into her outstretched hand, along with a roll of scotch tape. 

El was putting Will’s snowflakes on the tree, and it...didn’t look bad, actually, even if there weren’t nearly enough.

“We wrapped the ribbon around it, too,” Max shrugged. “From in with the wrapping paper.”

“Dustin’s on popcorn balls,” Billy told her, and she nodded, cutting thick strips out of Will’s red paper, and passing them to Lucas, who chained each loop off the next.

Hopper came out with paper plates and handed around a sandwich each, and Billy started wondering where Steve was—whether he’d hidden in his bedroom, or taken a shower, or fallen asleep—when Joyce came up and grabbed his arm, and Billy jumped and nearly smacked her in the face with his sandwich. 

“D’you know if Steve has any more sleeping bags?” she asked, and Billy opened his mouth to ask why the hell she thought he’d have any fucking idea, then remembered them, next to the skiwear in the garage. 

“Uh, yeah,” he said, leading the way, and realizing too late it left the two of them alone as the garage door closed behind them. 

“Oh, good,” Joyce said, trotting over to where he’d been crouched holding Steve. “That’s one for El, and Dustin—and I can sleep on the couch—”

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Billy said hoarsely. “Ma’am,” he added, belatedly. “About—about us. It—he’s all happy about _ Christmas,  _ just—just let him—”

“Oh jesus, no,” she breathed, dropping the sleeping bag she’d stuck under either arm and walking up to squeeze his hands as the bags bounced behind her on the floor. One of them rolled around to bump Billy’s legs as she frowned up at him. “You two—”

Billy swallowed hard, having still, somehow, hoped she’d be surprised and confused.

“You two...” she repeated, squeezing his hands and patting them between her own as she frowned up at him. “It’s—it’s _ okay  _ to be _ different,”  _ she said, setting her jaw. “Everybody’s different, you—you can be a little—a little more different—”

“...you’re not pissed at us,” Billy breathed, closing his eyes. He felt _ tired,  _ suddenly, and he leaned against the hood of Steve’s car, sighing.

“No—no, I’m not—how could— _ Will’s  _ different,” she gritted out. _ “Will’s  _ different, and—and he’s _ such  _ a good kid, I—I love him _ so much,”  _ she said, and Billy laughed, opening his eyes to see her stare boring into him. “I love him _ so  _ much,” she repeated. “There’s _ nothing wrong  _ with him. There’s _ nothing wrong  _ with being different.”

“...okay,” Billy said, feeling like she needed him to respond, and she shook his hands like she was trying to get his attention. 

“There’s _ nothing wrong  _ with you,” she said, and he laughed, unable to meet her eyes. “Billy,” she said, and he nodded automatically at the stern voice. “Thank you for inviting us for Christmas. Thank you.” He nodded again, his eyes stinging, and she blew air through her cheeks, squeezing his hands again. “...who else knows?” she asked, and he took a weird shuddering breath, shaking his head when his voice wouldn’t come out.

“Just Steve?” she whispered, and he nodded, flinching as she reached up absently and messed up his hair again. “They won’t get it out of me,” she said, linking her pinky with his, so he snorted a wet laugh. “You two might want to be more careful, though, okay?”

“Yeah,” he whispered, and she stepped up next to him where he was leaning against the car, and pulled his head into her shoulder, stroking his hair. She smelled like cigarettes, the sandwich she’d been eating, her shitty car, and baking, and he let himself close his eyes again, inhaling. 

“I wondered why you two were making a turkey,” she said, idly, and he laughed, relaxing as her arm tightened around his head, and he had to turn his head a little to breathe against her shoulder. “Sounds like he really wanted a nice Christmas with you.”

“He’s loving this,” Billy whispered, sighing. “He’s gonna wanna watch Christmas specials. He’s probably hanging his actual sweat socks on the tree. He’s _ lost  _ it.”

“Hrrrrm,” she said, swaying a little back and forth, and Billy never wanted to move again, even as he started to shiver in the cold garage. “Y’know, kiddo,” she said, “—Hopper’s made fancy Christmas cookies before, with his—” she cleared her throat. “—uh, his—he’s—he knows how. What say we go make some _ gingerbread  _ and blow your, um,” she paused, and Billy waited. “Your _ boyfriend  _ away,” she decided, and he groaned, his face heating like he had a heatlamp inside. 

“Jesus,” he mumbled, and she gave his head a last squeeze, ruffled his hair, and let go. “Come on,” she said, “Let’s get going.”

The shower turned off upstairs as they hauled the sleeping bags out of the garage, and El was shaping the first popcorn balls, pressing M&Ms into them in zigzag patterns like glass ornaments. Dustin wedged a candy cane in each, forming the popcorn around it as a hook, and Billy tried to remember how much candy he’d unpacked. 

The popcorn was hot and gooey, and Mrs. Henderson grabbed Billy by the shoulders and pushed him at the sink as Hopper shoved the kids at the sink and watched them wash, and then coated everyone’s hands with butter. Popcorn balls started covering every surface in the kitchen, as Jonathan’s flash worked overtime.

“Whoa, wow, what’s happening,” Steve said, at Billy’s elbow, and Billy wanted to spin around and scream into his sweater, but instead he just pulled him closer and washed all four of their hands at once, while Steve smiled, watching his face. 

“We’re making ornaments for your giant tree,” said Dustin, and Steve blinked, but the next moment Billy had a handful of butter, and he was rubbing it into Steve’s fingers, and watching him turn slowly red over his _ entire body. _

“O-o-okay,” Steve yelped, staring at Billy as Dustin smacked a malformed popcorn ball into his hands. 

“Hurry up, they’ll harden!” he barked, and Steve nodded, glancing around wide-eyed to see what everyone else was doing, but avoiding looking at Billy.

“Lemme know if I need to grease you up again,” Billy drawled, and Steve glared at him, his cheeks nearly magenta, before Joyce smacked them both, lightly, on the backs of their heads. 

“Boys,” she said, and they both shut up, occasionally exchanging glances. Steve leaned to bump shoulders, and Billy grinned at his popcorn ball, pressing brown M&Ms in as a mouth, and orange for a nose. 

“It’s a snowman,” he announced, and El gasped. 

“I’ll make a Rudolph,” Steve whispered. “Candy canes for antlers?”

“Tomorrow we can crash them into each other,” Billy muttered. “Like a monster truck rally.” Steve snorted, reaching over and popping an M&M in Billy’s mouth with a warm, sugary, greasy finger, and Billy stared at his popcorn ball for several long seconds, willing his erection to subside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Merry Christmas! Thank you so much for wandering in! Lemme know if you liked my story--I lovelovelove hearing from people! Kudos! Short comments! Long comments! Questions! Constructive criticism! Comments as extra kudos! Thanks so, so much! XD**  
>  (I try to reply to each one, but if you don't want a response to your comment then please say "No reply please" or "Whisper" so I'll know not to reply.) ****  
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	3. Chapter 3

As everyone stared at the trays and trays of popcorn balls, then down at their caramelly fingers, Joyce drew Hopper away. 

Billy watched her wave her hands around as she talked to him in a low voice, and he frowned at Steve, then, for some reason, at Billy. Billy set his jaw, glaring back, and Hopper _laughed,_ shaking his head. Steve stared Billy in the eye and slid one of his caramel fingers in his mouth, and Billy swiveled away to wash his hands as Hopper braced his feet to yell.

“Who wants to make Christmas cookies,” he called out. “El!”

“Me!” she shouted back, from the front room, and then there came a rapid thumping as she ran back to the kitchen. 

“What’s happening,” Steve whispered again, as Dustin grabbed their popcorn balls, and trotted into the front room.

Billy thought of a few responses, like _everybody’s trying to decorate your damn tree,_ and _you bought so many groceries Mrs. Henderson screamed into her hands,_ and bit his lips together. “They’re having a good time,” he said finally. “Max put on the Jackson 5, Will’s making snowflakes.”

Steve watched his face uncertainly, and Billy sighed, elbowing him. 

“They don’t have to be here.”

“Yeah,” Steve nodded, laughing unsteadily. 

“They _want_ to be here,” Billy stressed, and Steve nodded, biting back a smile. 

“You two delinquents helping us make cookies?” Joyce said, stepping between their chairs. She hugged both their heads to her stomach, while Steve stared into Billy’s eyes like he was having a heart attack. “Say cheese,” she said, and Billy felt himself flush at the idea of a photo of he and Steve with Joyce Byers’ arms around their heads. Jonathan took a few, and Joyce let go and yanked them up by the shoulders to mix, and measure, and get two separate mixing bowls of cookies going, while Hopper and Mrs. Henderson made frosting. 

“I haven’t got any cutting-out thingies,” Steve confessed suddenly, and Hopper snorted. 

“That’s what knives are for,” said Mrs. Henderson, her cheer making the line even creepier, and Billy rolled his eyes, and started cutting out fold-and-cut paper doll chains to use as stencils. 

“Oh, leave those two together,” said Joyce, leaning over Billy’s shoulder, as he started to cut two gingerbread men apart. “They’re friends. We’ll put them up as pairs. Let them hold hands. You boys can each decorate your own set.”

Billy froze, his cheeks flushing, and Steve dropped the bowl he was mixing, so it clattered against the counter. “O-okay,” Billy whispered, under his breath, and she patted his shoulder, shouting for the kids to all come and cut out cookies. 

The kitchen turned into a _stampede,_ so Billy tugged Steve out, pulling him into the front room where the TV was playing static in front of a stack of Christmas videotapes, and the enormous tree was actually looking _good,_ decked out with yards of paper chain in alternating red and white, gleaming popcorn balls bigger than Billy’s fists, and Will’s intricate snowflakes. 

“Holy shit,” Steve mumbled, staring up at it, and sliding his fingers between Billy’s to give them a squeeze. “It...it looks so good.” He looked a little...adrift, Billy thought, and he glanced back towards the kitchen to make sure they had no witnesses before pulling Steve and his sweater closer, and giving him a tight hug and soft kiss under the Christmas tree. 

He was squishier than usual, in the sweater, and Billy squeezed harder, until Steve huffed a laugh, humming tunelessly against Billy’s lips. “Love you so much,” Steve whispered, still sounding a little bewildered, and Billy gave him one last squeeze before tugging his hand away, and clearing his throat. It felt raw. 

“You—you wanna put on one of your Christmas movies,” Billy asked, and Steve grimaced down at the pile. 

“Uh,” he said, and Billy bent to pick up _Silent Night, Bloody Night, The Little Drummer Boy,_ and _Black Christmas,_ subtitled _If This Picture Doesn’t Make Your Skin Crawl...It’s On Too Tight._ “Honestly the scariest one there is _Little Drummer Boy,”_ Steve said, sliding an arm around Billy’s waist. “He hates all humans and wants them to die.”

“Is it because they keep making him play that damn song?” Billy asked, eyeing it, and Steve pressed a warm kiss to his cheek. Billy heard a _click,_ and spun them in their socks on the hardwood floor to look at the door to the kitchen. 

Jonathan was standing there. He opened his mouth just as Dustin walked in, humming, and Jonathan swallowed, and grabbed the light-up snowman off the floor. “Thought I’d...put this by the door,” he mumbled, and Billy narrowed his eyes.

“Did he take a picture?” Billy asked under his breath. 

Steve bit his lips, clenching his hands on Billy’s arms. “...even if he doesn’t tell anyone, he’ll probably leave it around the photo lab for anyone to see, just like he _fucking_ did with Nancy.”

“I can only carry so many popcorn balls,” Dustin yelled into the kitchen, from around the other side of the tree, and more feet followed.

“I can go feed him his camera,” Billy offered in a whisper. “Shove it down his—”

“No, no,” Steve groaned. “He’s dating _Nancy,_ I can’t—and he’s here for Christmas, we can’t kill him.”

“You always act like I murder six guys before breakfast,” Billy muttered, and Steve snorted a laugh.

“That’s on the _sixth_ day of Christmas,” he whispered back, and Billy covered a snigger, trying to lean and see into the kitchen.

“On the first day of murder, my true love gave to me/a dead camera creep shoved into my tree. On the second day of murder—”

“See if you can get him alone,” Billy said under his breath, just as Will popped up next to him, and Steve backed away.

“I’m sleeping under the _tree,”_ Will breathed, dwarfed by the massive pillar of lights and ornaments. 

“Me too,” El announced, and Hopper frowned. 

“Oh, are you, now?” he asked her, and she nodded firmly, eyes wide and pleading.

“I wanna stay too,” Dustin said, throwing an arm around Will. He then stuck his tongue out at Lucas. “You gotta get home, I bet?”

“Shut up,” said Lucas, folding his arms and setting his jaw. 

“I’m...staying too,” said Max, and Billy turned to see her glaring at the tree, her fists clenched at her sides. 

“Good thing there’re enough sleeping bags,” Steve said, squeezing Billy’s shoulder, and Billy wondered what face he’d made, at the news his step-sister wanted to spend Christmas at Steve Harrington’s, without Lucas. 

“Are there?” Dustin’s mom asked. “Maybe we should go home, honey, I didn’t bring all the—”

“I’ll sleep naked!” Dustin declared, and everyone yelled “ew”, and “gross”, and “dude!” 

“...let’s get our pajamas,” his mom told him, and he blinked at her, then beamed. 

“Pajama party!” yelled El, high-fiving Will, and Billy glanced at Steve to see him nearly _hovering off the floor_ with excitement. 

“There’s hot chocolate,” Billy’s dingus boyfriend shouted over the noise. “We can stay up and tell stories!” 

“Bring more sleeping bags,” Billy whispered to Dustin, who grinned up at him—and then Billy saw Max creeping off to the phone, and dialling, turning her body away and plugging her ear to listen to the receiver. 

“Man,” Lucas sighed, folding his arms behind his head. “I wanna stay, too.”

“You should,” Steve told him, and Billy rolled his eyes. 

“Okay!” said Joyce, “Um, Hopper, and Steve, and Billy, and uh, Jonathan, um—”

Mrs. Henderson laughed, following Joyce and all the non-children into the garage. 

“Everyone’s very excited,” Joyce said, grimacing at Steve, “—but are there enough places to sleep?”

“You and Mrs. Henderson could sleep in my parent’s room,” Steve told her, squeezing Billy’s wrist with both hands. “And there’s a guest room, and my room. We can use sleeping bags—”

“The kids can zip them together,” suggested Hopper. “Sardine a few of ‘em in there.”

“I brought the Santa presents for Will,” Joyce whispered, as Billy closed the door after the crowd of grown-ups. “I’ll set those up tonight, if—if they ever go to _sleep—”_

“I brought El’s,” Hopper nodded, and Mrs. Henderson shrugged. 

“I’ll pick Dustin’s up.”

“Max?” Steve asked, looking at _Billy,_ and he shrugged. 

“No clue, she said she was staying with Lucas.”

“We can’t ask _Lucas,”_ Steve hissed, like _Santa secrecy_ was an issue of national defense, and Billy held his breath for a second, afraid of what he might say, he so desperately wanted to kiss Steve Harrington’s stupid face.

“Max, uh, she called somebody,” Billy told them. “She’s probably...figuring it out.”

“Where are _your_ presents,” Steve asked, suddenly, and Billy snorted, grinning at him.

“The fuck are _yours,_ genius?”

They both realized at the same time they were surrounded by parents, and looked back at the wide-eyed, frowning faces of Hopper, Mrs. Henderson, and Joyce Byers, who all looked tongue-tied, and Jonathan Byers, who looked like he was feeling awkward as hell.

“Look,” Steve said to them, “—you cooked my food and decorated my tree—”

“You brought Christmas to this lonely house,” Billy intoned, pressing his hands together in prayer, his eyes raised to the roof of the garage, and Steve elbowed him hard in the side as Jonathan covered a laugh. “Blessings on you, every one,” Billy wheezed, clutching his side, and Steve smacked his head, laughing. 

“Shut up! I’m serious—”

“You could let him dress up as Santa,” Billy threw out the suggestion, eyeing his boyfriend dryly. “I bet he’d cry from happiness.”

“I would _not,”_ Steve hissed. “They’d _recognize_ me. And that hat would cover my _best feature.”_

“Thank you for having us,” said Joyce, grabbing Steve’s hands. 

“Uh, no problem!” he laughed a little too jovially, his eyes wide and startled. “Uh, ho ho ho!”

“Oh my god,” Billy sighed. “Idiot.”

“If we’re upstairs, we _might_ need them to put the Santa presents out,” Hopper said, and Steve brightened. 

“We could do that.”

“El’s old for it,” Hopper grimaced, clearing his throat, “—but I was thinking of the whole thing, the—leave the note for Santa, and the...you know, the cookie crumbs.” He looked kind of...depressed about it, but he smiled back at the garage door and El. 

Steve made a noise like an over-full teakettle, spewing steam, and Billy smacked his back, _hard._ “No, no no, she’s not,” Steve coughed, glaring at Billy, and steepled his hands, eyes narrowed. “She’s not too old, she’s never _had_ Christmas, right? I knew somebody that rang bells outside. For Santa. Those kids were _convinced—”_

“Oh my god,” Billy groaned into his hands, feeling his tired smile muscles protest again. _Dingus,_ he thought, helplessly. He reached out, then pulled his arm back, remembering that _in front of everyone_ wasn’t the time to yank Steve into a kiss. 

He left the rest of them whispering about presents, and wandered back into the kitchen, face-first into a wall of cookie smells, to find the whole scout troop eating peanut butter with spoons, staring into the oven. 

“F’mell fo good,” El whispered, and Dustin, Lucas, and Will started telling her about _their_ Christmases.

Max was leaning well back, in the doorway to the front room, and she shot a glance at Billy, then glanced at them, raising her eyebrows. 

Billy snorted, sidling up so she was just out of arm’s reach. She relaxed when he stopped, and he folded his arms, turning to lean against the wall. “...you know if these idiots believe in Santa Claus?” he asked, under his breath.

She turned her head to stare witheringly. “They’re not _babies,”_ she hissed back.

“Yeah,” Billy nodded. “...the sheriff wants to do a little-kid Santa thing for El. Y’know, cookie crumbs.”

Max squinted at him, wrinkling her nose for emphasis. “...the fuck do you care,” she asked in a low voice, and Billy licked his teeth, slowly, thinking. “...Steve’s into it,” Max guessed, and he felt his cheeks heat, and wanted to tell her to _shut the hell up,_ but he took a deep breath. 

“You gonna help, or what,” he asked, keeping his eyes on Lucas, who was talking about his then-toddler sister telling a white girl that she was just sugar and flour, instead of being _brown and spicy like gingerbread,_ and Will was laughing, while El looked a little confused. 

“You wanna trick _El_ into believing in _Santa,”_ Max said, raising her eyebrows at Billy. “You want her to get _beat up in school?”_

“No,” Billy winced. “No, no, just…”

“Fine,” she sighed. “I’ll tell the guys. We can be Santa...agnostic. Make it _good,_ though, I’m not looking like a moron over some half-eaten carrots.”

“Right,” Billy nodded, turned away—he could feel Max’s stare between his shoulder blades, and _felt_ his shoulders hunching—and he slipped back into the garage. “Max will help,” he said, and everybody frowned at him. He felt his cheeks heating, and _desperately_ wanted to turn back around and leave, or maybe get in his car, and drive to California. “...help you to...convince El there’s a...Santa,” he forced out, and Steve _lit up_ as Hopper blinked and smirked, and Joyce and Claudia Henderson grinned.

“Wait, what,” said Jonathan.

“She says to make it _good,_ she’s not gonna look dumb over half-eaten carrots,” Billy repeated dutifully, and Joyce covered what looked like a _snicker._

 _Fuck you,_ he thought, but Steve was already turning to Hopper with a serious expression. “What about the woodstove? How’s Santa gonna get down the—” 

“Knew a guy once,” Hopper said, crossing his arms with a frown, “—he took his biggest boots, stuck ‘em in the ashes, and made some prints in front of the stove.”

“Oh, that’s _good,”_ Steve breathed. “We gotta get that thing lit.”

Billy stared over, listening with disbelief to his boyfriend trying to figure out how Santa managed stovepipes. He was beginning to wonder if _Steve Harrington_ believed in Santa.

“I can tell Will,” said Jonathan, shooting a suspicious glance at Billy, who shrugged, stepping away from the door to let him get by. 

“There are jingly bells in one of the boxes,” Steve announced. “Shake them outside—”

“Y’know, if you tossed those car chains on the roof,” Billy said, “—let ‘em slide down, it’d sound like a sleigh, maybe. Get it down with a ladder later. They’d never know in the dark.”

Joyce looked a little bewildered, but Hopper’s eyes widened, and he clapped a hand on Billy’s shoulder. “Keep talking,” he said intently. Billy wanted to flinch away, and _knew_ he was supposed to stay still, so he kept his knees locked, swallowing. His ears rang a little.

“The—the chains,” he repeated numbly. “Sir,” and Hopper lifted his hand away, then patted Billy's arm, frowning. Steve came up and threw an arm around him, and Billy tried not lean into him too obviously.

"...actually, I got something else you could help me with, kiddo," Hopper said, and Billy nodded automatically. Joyce reached out and squeezed his arm, and he wondered how _obvious he_ was, him sweating like a _pussy_ in the cold air of the garage. "The kids are gonna know all our handwriting. I need a Santa note for El."

"Yeah," Billy nodded, trying to focus on Hopper's words, and not the garage, where the crowbar was so close to Hopper's hand. 

"I want Santa to apologize for not finding her at the labs," said Hopper, his jaw working, and Steve's hand on Billy's arm jerked as Claudia and Joyce winced. "Tell her he tried."

"Oh shit, yeah," Billy snorted. "Where the hell has he been, if he's not a shithead." Steve squeezed him, smirking, and Billy took a deep breath. "Just tell me what you want me to write."

"Atta kid," said Hopper, and Billy shoved down the stupidest part of him, the part that wanted to write Hopper thirty notes in a row, and hear 'Atta kid' every time.

"Sure," Billy said, thickly.

“I think we can make it pretty, uh, pretty believable,” Steve said, his eyes sparkling in a way Billy _resented._ Not for the first time, he wished he could kiss him when he looked like that, no matter _who_ was watching. “Billy and me can put the stockings up, and the presents out, and then make some noise.”

“We should encourage a snowball fight,” said Mrs. Henderson craftily. “Get them all tuckered out.”

“Ohhhh,” said Joyce and Hopper, nodding, and Steve beamed at Billy.

He nodded back, feeling a temptation to salute, but instead he just smiled back, trying not to look too tense next to the Sheriff. Steve came over and threw an arm around him again, squeezing him around the shoulders, and Billy looked away from his mouth before he did anything catastrophic.

“Are—” he cleared his throat, and Steve smirked. “Are the pellets in here? For the stove?”

“Oh," said Jonathan. “On it.”

Just then, the door to the garage opened, and Dustin stuck his head in. “The cookies are done! The hell are you all doing, anyway?!”

“Figuring out where you all sleep!” Billy yelled back, and Dustin snorted, raising his eyebrows. “Come on, Steve,” Dustin called. “We got frosting and everything.”

Steve hauled Billy along into the kitchen, and Joyce presented them with two baked cookies from Billy’s unfolding paper doll pattern—two boys each, linked like they were holding hands. “I want friend cookies!” El said, staring at them, and started helping Hopper roll out another batch of dough, her jaw set with concentration.

Mrs. Henderson packed some white frosting into a sandwich baggie and cut off the corner, tapping Steve on the arm and showing him how to squeeze it through in a line. 

“Whoa,” he whispered.

“I need blue for jeans,” Billy said, feeling his cheeks heat, and his heart _pounding,_ wondering if they could honest-to-god get away with decorating _boyfriend cookies_ in the kitchen with everyone they knew. 

“On it,” said Steve, as Dustin—apparently a Christmas cookie _pro—_ showed Will how to do Joyce’s plaid flannel shirt. 

Billy watched Max stare at he and Steve, and then their cookies, and then look at _Lucas,_ and roll up her sleeves, when something soft landed in his hand. He looked down at a bag of pale blue frosting, and up to see Steve studying Billy’s mostly-unbuttoned blue button-down with a smile. “Just a little darker,” he decided, as Billy shook his head, and began outlining the pants on his boyfriend cookie. 

Claudia and Joyce were laughing at Joyce trying to do plaid on a plain round one, and making a mess, and Steve leaned in next to Billy and started his own cookie, his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth in concentration. 

It made his lips glisten, and Billy tore his eyes away, clearing his throat, to finish filling in his jean lines, drawing frosting over Steve’s naked cookie thigh, as Steve started brown curls on one of the cookie heads. 

“...gonna have to eat ‘em carefully so the hands don’t break apart,” said Mrs. Henderson, between their heads, and they both jumped half out of their _skins,_ but she grinned, a hand on each of their outside shoulders. “I did wait until you lifted your frosting bags,” she pointed out, and Billy nodded, wondering whether his mom’s family was prone to heart failure, because he was pretty sure he’d almost died, thinking about slipping his boyfriend slowly into his mouth as he filled blue frosting in the fly of Steve’s cookie jeans.

“Y-yeah,” Billy mumbled, and she put her hands on their heads, ruffling their hair before going to help Will do his mom’s face. 

“Put me in a yellow sweater,” Steve whispered. “I’m hot as hell in yellow.”

“Do it yourself,” Billy muttered, squeezing green food coloring from an old, easter-themed box they’d found next to the pipe over the stove vent. “You’re _wearing_ green, I’m piping it green.” He filled it in slowly down Steve’s cookie stomach, covering where Steve shivered when Billy slid his hands up his boyfriend’s clothes. Next to him, the sweater on the actual Steve Harrington still smelled like the Christmas tree lot, and like he’d been kissing Billy in the garage against a car.

Joyce wandered up next to him, leaning in, and Billy stopped, waiting for her assessment. “Very nice,” she said, smiling, and Billy registered Hopper watching them, frowning down at the cookies, and narrowing his eyes. He stared back, feeling his heart start pounding again, but Hopper gave his head a quick jerky shake and turned back to El. Billy leaned against the counter, trembling, and Joyce put an arm around him. 

“What’s wrong, kiddo?” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder, and Billy shook his head, stepping a little further from where Steve’s jeans pressed against his side. 

Billy shook his head again, wishing he wasn’t such a pussy, jumping at every noise. He started filling in Steve’s sweatered cookie arms. He wanted to drag Steve back in the garage and feel them again, squeezing him until he felt...better, but there were a million people in the house that could burst in on them, and _find out,_ so he worked on his cookie, and remembered to breathe. 

He slowed down as he filled in Steve’s cookie sneakers. He’d never thought much about Steve’s shoes before, but he imagined touching them too, maybe dragging Steve around the house, and laughing at his yells. Dragging him under the Christmas tree, and peeling him out of the jeans, and the sweater, and feeling his skin as he breathed.

Billy tried to turn his body so nobody’d see how hard he was in his jeans, _frosting cookies._ He grabbed the brown Steve had used—there was plenty—and tried to do the swoopy thing Steve’s hair did, as Steve carefully drew the crooked line down Billy’s cookie-chest that his shirt made, open nearly to his bellybutton. He glanced up with a smirk that said he knew _exactly_ what Billy was thinking, and ran the frosting up Billy’s cookie sides, smiling, as Billy wondered what was _wrong_ with you if you _jizzed in your pants making cookies._

Lucas and Max were cutting out hand-holding cookies of each other too, and Billy set his jaw, but Max threw an arm around El, and said “Let’s do friend cookies, like them,” and El nodded. Max didn’t look over, but Billy took a slow relieved breath.

Billy’s cookie-self on his own cookie was naked, and if they’d been alone, he’d have frosted on hair and a big cock, but he sighed, and put on pants and a shirt. His frosting hair made him look like a poodle, but he shrugged at the final result, risking a glance at Steve’s. 

Steve glanced up, smiling, and drew a heart in his yellow frosting sweater, then filled in around and inside it to blend it in. Billy bit back a smile, shaking his head, and watched him—his frown of concentration, the smear of green on his cheek, even though he hadn’t even _used_ the green, and his forearms bared by his rolled-up sleeves, his hands gentle on the frosting bag. It was squishing out the back of the bag over his thumb, and Billy reached over and wiped it away before it landed and messed up Steve’s cookie, sticking it in his mouth without thinking. He swished the buttery sweetness around in his mouth, and thought about what it would taste like to kiss.

Will’s Joyce cookie had a cute face, so Billy leaned back to hiss at Claudia Henderson, and she did the faces for him too. Cookie-Billy was looking at Steve, and Billy glanced at her face, but she just hummed along with John Denver and the Muppets and drew Steve’s face in, smiling back at Billy. 

“...thanks,” Billy told her, and she smiled and patted his hand, wandering over to help Max with an overabundance of cookie candy canes.

“They’re cute,” Steve whispered, at their two sets of boyfriends. He’d done his own faces, and Billy had a goofy little frown on his face that cookie-Steve was smiling at, but then Billy felt Steve’s fingers locking with his between their thighs and the cupboard, and he took a shaky breath, squeezing back.

“Next year we’ll do a lil’ heart between them,” Steve said under his breath, and Billy laughed, a little too loud and uneven.

“Kid,” said Hopper, dropping a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Smoke break.”

Hopper led the way out of the kitchen, noisily grabbing his coat and yanking his boots on in the hall, and Billy thought for a moment he might _piss himself_ right there in the kitchen, unable to walk or breathe. 

“I’ll help Steve put ribbons on them to hang,” Joyce said cheerily, and Steve frowned from her to Billy, biting his lip, as Billy stood, staring at his cookie, his gorge rising. 

Hopper leaned back in the kitchen. “Come on, son,” he said, and Billy kept his knees locked, and then forced himself a step around, and another towards the door. 

“...best spot is right there by the windows,” said Steve, pointing, and leaning to lock eyes with Billy. “You can see the tree! Where I can see you.”

Billy nodded, a little of the weight he felt lessening at the thought of Steve watching him from the window. Somebody shoved him forward, and he staggered out to the entryway, and pulled on his shoes. He ducked around Hopper and jogged outside, blowing on his fingers and staying at least ten feet ahead as he trotted around to where Steve had pointed, and Steve knocked on the window, waving. The chill air felt even colder against the sweat suddenly sheening his whole body, and he clenched his moist hands, shivering.

“Talked to your dad a few times when you folks moved to town,” said Hopper, and Billy made a weird noise in his throat, and shut his mouth. Hopper pulled a cigarette out and lit up, but he didn’t come any closer, and Billy realized he hadn’t remembered his smokes. 

“Shit,” he muttered, patting his back pocket, then rubbing his arms. “Sir. Yeah?”

“He said you were a troublemaker,” said Hopper, and Billy wondered what to _do,_ if Hopper warned him off Steve. He was thinking so hard about where to hide his car, he missed some of what Hopper was saying. “...started fights, drove drunk.”

“Yes sir,” Billy whispered, automatically, and Hopper took a long drag off his cigarette.

“That’s not the kid I’m seeing,” he said, and Billy swallowed, shifting his feet. Both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ sounded like he was arguing, somehow, and while he tried to figure out what he was supposed to say, Hopper went on. “Helping Steve put up his tree. Heard you rescued Joyce Byers.”

“I just found her,” Billy said, the possible things Hopper might do whirling a _little_ less in front of his mind’s eye the longer they stood. His brain couldn’t help spiralling a little at the idea of Hopper grabbing him by the shirt, and shoving him just a few feet away into the deep end of the empty pool. _It has a shallow end,_ he told himself. _I could get out._ The snow crunched under his feet, and he glanced back at the house to see Steve watching, and in the front room, Will and Lucas hanging cookies on the tree. “She, uh, Mrs. Byers. She said she didn’t have power.”

“You’re helping with El,” Hopper said, and Billy waited, raising his eyebrows. “...I think you’re an alright kid,” Hopper went on, and Billy nearly burst out laughing in disbelief, when Hopper said “—you and Steve,” with weird emphasis, and Billy froze again, his eyes stinging from more than the cold wind. “I think you and Steve are okay,” he said again, stressing it, as the light from the house illuminated his intent face. “I don’t think anybody should be giving you a hard time.”

“What,” Billy croaked, stumbling back a step, only able to parse that Hopper _knew,_ he’d _seen,_ and Hopper sighed, and blew out a cloud of smoke. 

“Take a breath,” Hopper told him, and Billy did, shakily. “I don’t care what your dad or anybody else says,” he said, and Billy nodded, swallowing hard. “You’re an alright kid, in my book. You and Steve.”

“Okay,” Billy said, a weird creak, because his voice wasn’t working. 

“Atta kid,” said Hopper, holding his hand out, and Billy slowly stepped towards him, feeling stupid, like a curious cat. Hopper squeezed his arm when he got close enough, patting his back. “Let’s get inside. Let your _friend Steve_ give you the damn _heart cookie_ he cut out.”

“He made me a damn heart cookie,” Billy repeated, numbly, and Hopper patted his shoulder again, pushing him towards the house. 

“Yep. Get inside, sport.”

“Jesus,” Billy whispered under his breath, and Hopper’s big hand tapped his back again as they walked through the door, and squeezed his shoulder, but it was gentle. Careful, Billy thought, glancing back to see Hopper’s tired frown. 

“You need anything, you let me know,” he said, and Billy nodded like a marionette, his head bobbing on its own. 

Steve grabbed his hand before he even got his shoes all the way off, and drug him over to hang their big, fragile, hand-holding cookies on the tree, and Billy hung his way up, out of the reach of the kids. “You okay?” Steve whispered, and Billy nodded, wiping his eyes. 

“He said, uh,” he cleared his throat again. “It’s fine. He knows. It’s fine. _Jesus.”_ Steve blinked, and put at arm around him, leaning their heads together.

The room was warm, with the pellet stove finally kicking in, and Steve’s sweatered arm around his shoulders. Steve bumped their shoulders together, smiling up at the tree, and Billy reached over and wiped the frosting off his boyfriend’s chin with his thumb. He stuck it in his mouth, and Steve watched, biting his lips together. 

Somebody knocked, and Billy pulled away to get the front door, reminding himself not to lean in, and let Steve Harrington kiss him until no taste of frosting remained. He cleared his throat, opening the door on a tiny person in a pink coat and braids sticking out everywhere. “Where’s Lucas,” she asked bluntly, glaring up at him, and Billy felt his lips thin. 

“Lucas!” he yelled. “There’s an elf here for you!”

“What?!” Lucas yelled back, leaning his head around the corner with the stove, and the little girl sighed, putting her hands on her hips. 

“Mom wants you back home, unless you got a good bribe.”

“...I got cookies,” he said, brightening, and her eyes narrowed. 

“Buy you maybe an hour,” she said, arms crossed in the open doorway, and Billy covered a laugh. 

“Get out of the door,” he told her, and she sighed melodramatically, stomping out of the doorway to pull her boots off. 

“Better be _good cookies!”_ she hollered, fingers cupped around her mouth.

“There are a bunch that broke,” Max said, popping an arm in her mouth. Dustin and Will were decorating the body parts and hanging them on the tree, but every so often Max slid a hand down and grabbed one. She grabbed a “bloodied” frosted torso as Billy walked in, and stuck it in Lucas’ mouth, and he grinned around it as she hugged him from behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Merry Christmas! Thank you so much for wandering in! Lemme know if you liked my story--I lovelovelove hearing from people! Kudos! Short comments! Long comments! Questions! Constructive criticism! Comments as extra kudos! Thanks so, so much! XD**  
>  (I try to reply to each one, but if you don't want a response to your comment then please say "No reply please" or "Whisper" so I'll know not to reply.)
> 
>  **[Reblog this fic!](https://platypanthewriter.tumblr.com/post/639165790979014656/my-yuletide-exchange-fic)  
> **   
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	4. Chapter 4

Steve found the bells, took them in the garage, and tied them all into a big hank they could shake together, and then he drug Billy outside, suggesting they _ take a look at where to tie it,  _ and run a cord out the window to jangle in the dead of night. 

Billy yanked him around the corner of the house, and shoved him into a bush tall enough to hide them, sliding both hands up the back of Steve’s sweater, and kissing his open mouth as he yelped. 

“Mmng,” Steve mumbled, relaxing in his arms. “Hi,” he whispered, bright-eyed, and kissed Billy’s nose with lips already chilly from the cold. Billy groaned softly, shoving Steve deeper in the bush with his weight, nuzzling his face into his boyfriend’s cold throat, and mouthing up the vein in the side of Steve’s neck to feel him squirm, biting back a groan. 

“Hi,” Billy told him, and Steve snorted, pulling him in tighter. 

“Hey,” Steve whispered, melting into him, and then jerking as the branches of the bush dug into his back. Snow showered them, and they both shut their eyes, huddling together.

“Steve Harrington,” Billy said into the kiss-tender skin under his boyfriend’s jaw, “—you know Santa’s not real, right?”

“Shut up,” Steve laughed, with a shiver. 

“If Santa was real,” Billy told him, pausing to brush snow out of Steve’s hair, and slide Steve’s earlobe through his teeth, “—you wouldn’t have been so lonely at Christmas, right?”

“...mmmn,” Steve whispered, his arms tightening around Billy’s neck and shoulders. 

“Santa would’ve been smart enough to pack one of us up, right? Put you under my tree,” Billy told him, smiling as Steve pulled away enough to kiss him, urgent and hot. Billy could feel Steve’s dick, half-hard through his jeans even in the freezing darkness.

Steve was trembling a little, probably with laughter, smiling so hard their teeth kept catching on each other’s lips. “He’d have brought you _ here,”  _ Steve whispered, brushing snow off Billy’s shoulders, and sliding his hand up the back of Billy’s head to hold him closer. “Wrap you up under my tree,” he whispered against Billy’s lips, between kisses, his breath warm, and his lips soft. “Every year I’d have my friend again. Around midnight I’d be trying to marry you so you wouldn’t vanish again.”

“Oh shit, no,” Billy shook his head, humming as Steve’s fingers raked through his hair, and up between his shoulder blades. “No,” he said, grinning, “—keep me—”

“Parents might not’ve noticed they had two kids all of a sudden,” Steve suggested, and Billy laughed harder, nodding. 

“Keep me in the closet, if they ask.”

Steve snorted a laugh. “Nah, can’t hold your hand in the closet.”

Billy felt like his bones were gonna creak, as tightly as Steve was holding him, but it felt so good he leaned into it, arching his body to get even closer. “Can’t fuck me in the closet,” he whispered, and Steve moaned quietly, muffling it against Billy’s neck.

“Santa needs to bring me some _ privacy,”  _ Steve muttered, bucking his hips, and Billy laughed. “Fucking...soundproofing,” Steve huffed. “Locking door.”

“They’ll probably leave tomorrow,” Billy told him. “We got tomorrow night. Christmas night.”

Steve sighed, and Billy felt himself smiling again. “...y’know your tree’ll be up for New Years, you could—”

“Invite them again,” Steve whispered, jerking back to stare in Billy’s face. “You’re a _ genius.” _

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Billy nodded, raising his eyebrows. “That’s my secret, yep.”

“It’s not _ that  _ much of a secret,” Steve said indignantly, and Billy leaned into him.

“Gimme another minute,” he whispered. “Then we can do your weird Santa shit.”

“Always,” said Steve, pressing their foreheads together, and then their cheeks, like they were dancing. Billy let his eyes close, taking deep breaths of snow, and Steve’s laundry soap, and his sweaty fir-tree smell from wrestling the tree inside over his usual aftershave. 

“Gonna unwrap you under the tree tomorrow night,” Billy whispered, and felt Steve grin.

“See, look,” Steve whispered excitedly, “—we put the bells on a branch of one close to the house, and we hang the chain on the part that hangs over the roof, and then when we yank it hard from the window—” he waggled the tree, and _ covered them in snow,  _ and Billy yelled incoherently, but Steve just beamed in the light of the side windows, brushing snow out of Billy’s curls. “—they hear _ Santa.” _

“We can do it from a _ window,  _ dipshit,” Billy hissed. “Without a _ ladder.  _ Look, Hopper or somebody can take them upstairs, and jangle the bells or whatever, and throw the chains, and you and I do _ stockings and presents— _ I’m not getting up a _ ladder  _ in this weather, we’ll _ die—” _

Steve kissed him, grinning. “Love you,” he whispered back, tugging him back around the house into the garage, and Billy stared at him as the door closed behind him.

“...you can’t just...every time I’m pissed at you,” he growled, and Steve glanced around and leaned in to kiss him, quick, but softly, and whispered it _ again. _

_ “Fuck  _ you,” Billy snarled, his face _ flaming,  _ his fingers gripping Steve’s sweater, and _ having to let go,  _ in case one of Steve’s damn houseguests walked in the garage _.  _ “I’m gonna eat a boyfriend cookie,” he threatened. “I’m gonna snap their heads and feet off—” and Steve stepped back, laughing. 

“No, no, leave ‘em, leave ‘em. I’ll get you a cookie.” Steve trotted off to get one, while Billy stuck car chains in trash bags,and tried to get his breathing—and his pounding heart, and his _ dick— _ under control. Steve came back with a heart cookie with a dick drawn _ on  _ it, and said “Probably wanna eat that fast,” like he hadn’t just _ drawn a cock and balls on a heart cookie  _ in front of five children, God, and Mrs. Henderson. 

Billy shoved it in his mouth.

“That’s the appetite for dick I like to see,” Steve whispered, and Billy choked, coughing crumbs as Steve laughed so hard he wheezed for air. 

_ “Bastard,”  _ Billy hissed, coughing, just as the door opened, and Jonathan stuck his head in. “Hey,” he said, frowning at Billy, dying choking on Steve’s cock-cookie, and Steve rubbing his back.

“Uh,” said Jonathan. “Is, um, is the car...working?”

“Oh, yeah,” Steve told him, grinning. “It’ll start now. Thought it might be good to get it vacuumed out. Cleaned up. I changed the oil, too.”

“Oh!” Jonathan blinked, turning to look it over as his shoulders relaxed. “Oh. Yeah, that’s—that’s good. Will and I can do that. I’ll get him. Um.”

Billy coughed again, wiping his eyes, and Steve grinned at Jonathan. “He’s just choking on my...cookie.”

“Jesus _ goddamn  _ christ,” Billy hissed, hitting at him, but Steve dodged, spinning away. 

“Uh,” said Jonathan, looking even _ more  _ awkward, if possible. “My—my mom said, um.”

Steve’s jaw clenched, even though he was smiling, and Billy cleared his throat. “What’s she need?” Billy asked, and Jonathan blinked again, then smiled. 

“Uh, no, not that. It’s not—she said if I…” he winced, biting his lip. “If I...got some pictures of—of both of you, you might—you might...want...that.” He grimaced at the floor. “I wouldn’t take them to the photo lab! They’d be—nobody would see them.”

“...the fuck are you saying,” Billy whispered, registering that he’d stepped in front of Steve.

“You were, uh, you were kissing in front of the tree,” Jonathan glanced up, wincing. “Mom thought you might...want a picture. I just—” he blew air through his cheeks, watching Steve. “I know I was shitty about Nancy, I wouldn’t—I’ll throw out the film, if you want. I just—I wanted to ask.” He sighed. “This time.”

Billy was still stuck on the idea of a _ photo  _ of him kissing a man, but Steve spoke. 

“You ever apologize to _ her  _ for that?”

“Y-yeah,” Jonathan nodded. “Yeah, yes, she—she was mad. She, um. She should’ve been. She—” he cut off, blushing hard, and Steve wrinkled his nose. “I made it up to her,” he mumbled, smiling, and Billy shuddered as Jonathan kept talking. “But I don’t want to...I don’t want to be...shitty. D’you want some pictures? I’ll wait ‘til I know it’s safe. Do it at home, develop them, I mean. Lock my door.”

“...y’know what, yeah,” Steve said, and Billy stared at him. Steve winced, biting his lip. “If—if that’s okay,” he said to Billy. “I—I want to...have...something? Not if you don’t want to.”

Billy had been ready to _ feed  _ Jonathan Byers his camera, but Steve looked...wistful, and like he knew what Billy wanted to say. Billy considered. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “Sure. Make a copy. Give him the negative, though.”

Steve laughed disbelievingly, reached out to Billy, and then yanked his hand back, and Jonathan hid his face. 

“Holy crap,” he groaned. “Okay. I’ll uh, if I see...anything, I’ll take some more. I’ll be careful, though. I’m—I’m gonna go get Will, do what...do whatever you need to do.”

Billy was still tempted to hit him a few times, but Steve wrapped his arms around him from behind, warm and padded from the sweater, smelling like _ Steve,  _ and laughing against Billy’s neck. 

“Oh my god,” he whispered. “Fuck. We can—we can have _ Christmas photos,  _ babe—can you—can you imagine—” 

Billy could definitely imagine himself, awkwardly swearing at his boyfriend, and probably red as a tomato, and sighed. “Sure,” he said, grabbing Steve’s head over his shoulder, and holding it closer to kiss. 

“Mmmn,” Steve laughed into his hair, his voice muffled.

They walked out to find Lucas leaving, resentfully stomping around, and his sister sighing at the sky. “I’ll come over tomorrow,” he told Max, who nodded, biting her lips. 

“...it’s okay if they won’t let you,” she said, shrugging, hugging herself, and frowning intensely at his shoes. 

“You should come get him,” said his little sister. “Bring him back. My mom thought you were _ staying.  _ She made _ so much pie.” _

“I can eat pie,” said Max, her mouth quirking, and Lucas’ shoulders relaxed a little, watching her. 

“You can come over early as you want,” he said, and his little sister raised her eyebrows, snorting.

“Maybe not too early,” Max said, smiling a little, and he held a fist out to her. She bumped his knuckles with hers, and watched them walk to the road before closing the door. Steve squeezed Billy’s arm, and he realized he was just standing there watching Max as the doorbell rang, and Max yanked the door open with a laugh—but it wasn’t Lucas, it was Susan, her mom.

Susan Hargrove was clutching what looked like a lidded pan of brownies and a bowl of salad with white knuckles, and her gaze flicked from her daughter, to Billy, and back. She bit her lips together, swallowing. “I—I brought the presents,” she said, jerking her head over her shoulder, “—but um, you said Steve and Billy were cooking, I thought they might want—” 

She trailed off as Joyce and Hopper wandered out, and Claudia Henderson, and Will. Susan took a slow breath, and swallowed hard. “Oh,” she whispered, then forced a laugh. “Oh, not—you’re not alone, of course, why would—why would—” she shoved the pan at Max and spun to walk back out the door, and Max shoved them at _ Billy  _ and chased after her, watching her mom try to unlock the car with shaking hands.

“You want her here?” Steve asked, and Billy set his jaw, thinking about the times Neil had held his head against the wall, speaking in that reasonable, low tone that always made Billy feel _ crazy,  _ for not measuring up, and _ Susan,  _ standing there. He ran his tongue over his teeth, thinking. “You can say no,” Steve whispered, putting an arm around his shoulder, and Billy sighed, and shrugged. 

“Don’t care,” he said, feeling exponentially more tired than he had ten minutes before.

“Mom,” Max was saying. “Mom. _ Mom.” _

“Here are your stockings,” Susan said, wiping her nose. “And here are—”

_ “Mom!”  _ Max yelled, grabbing her mom’s shoulder, and Susan flinched back with a little yelp. “Mom! Do—do you want to stay,” she asked, breathing a little heavily like it’d been an effort to ask. “Do you want to come in?” she asked again, her hand firm on her mother’s arm. “Do you want to stay?”

“That doesn’t seem very polite,” Susan said, her voice high and wobbly enough to carry, and Steve leaned out, cupping his hands around his face to yell. 

“Plenty of room,” he called. “Might have to share a bed with Mrs. Henderson. Come on in!”

She jumped, staring back at them, and her eyes fell on Billy. She bit her lips together, watching him, and he wondered, bitterly, whether she was too fucking scared of her stepson to notice Max’s shiny wet eyes. _ Maybe I should go just fucking...hide in the garage,  _ he thought, gritting his teeth. _ Keep them safe from Billy Hargrove— _

“That okay, Billy?” Susan asked shakily, and he narrowed his eyes at her. 

“Yes!” Max yelled, waving her arm, but Susan patted her shoulder. 

“Is it okay?” she asked again, looking at Billy, and he stared back, until Steve elbowed him, and he nodded.

“...there’s room,” he said, his throat a little sore and hoarse, and her shoulders relaxed. 

“Okay,” she nodded, and she looked _ delighted,  _ which was— _ confusing,  _ and—and _ weird as hell,  _ definitely, and he stood there glaring into the middle distance until Steve pushed by him to take an armload of _ presents,  _ and _ two  _ stockings, and Max followed with another box.

Billy turned and went back in the house, handed the food to Joyce Byers, and walked out to see Dustin, Will and El talking in front of the fire, lying on their stomachs. He veered off and stomped out the poolside door to walk along the empty pool and stand in a thicket of trees, taking shaky breaths, and wiping his cheeks. He kept his back facing the house, counting off breathing, and then heard the door open behind him. Footsteps crunched, and he was almost ready to turn around and try to act like—like a normal fucking human being—when Steve spoke.

“Hey, you alright?” he asked, coming up to slide his arm around Billy’s waist. 

“Just having a smoke,” Billy whispered, his voice weirdly nasal-sounding.

“You just...don’t have any cigarettes, is all,” Steve whispered back, squeezing him closer. “You want me to tell her to go?”

“No! No,” Billy shook his head, wiping his nose. “I just—” he took another slow breath, and blew it back out. “I just thought…” _ I thought she thought he was right about me,  _ Billy bit back. “It’s fine.”

“Is it?” Steve pulled him around the little patch of trees into the shade from the windows and kissed him, his hands warm and cupped around Billy’s face. “I was listening,” he whispered. “Shit, sorry. I was, I was listening, I just wanted to kiss you.”

“...okay,” Billy said, digging his fingers into handfuls of Steve’s sweater. He focused on the texture against his skin. Steve leaned their heads together, his faint shadow through the branches flickering across the snow. “Yeah,” Billy took a deep breath of outside, without the usual smoke. The cold made him cough, and he laughed, standing up again. “...I’m good. How’re you doin’? Where’s your, uh,” he sniffled, wiping his nose. “I got presents now, I guess, where the hell are _ your  _ parents?”

“Ha,” Steve said, smiling a little. 

“They better get their claim in, is all, I think every parent in there wants to adopt you,” Billy whispered, and Steve laughed, a little downcast. “I mean it,” Billy told him, yanking Steve closer by the sweater, and kissing him firmly. “My boy’s in high fucking demand.”

“Only by you,” Steve laughed, but it sounded genuine, so Billy didn’t argue.

“I could slide my hand down your pants,” he whispered, leaning close to breath it against Steve’s jaw. 

“Shit,” Steve whispered, shivering. “Yeah, fuck.” 

“Think anybody’ll walk out here?” Billy whispered back, yanking at the buttons on his boyfriend’s pants. 

“Hell no,” Steve whispered, sliding his hands down Billy’s sides to his belly, and snickering as he jumped back, shuddering. “They’d freeze their nuts off, get _ back  _ here.”

_ “You’re  _ gonna freeze my nuts off,” Billy hissed, blowing on his fingers. “Why do you _ live  _ here, there’s—there’s fucking _ monsters,  _ my cock’s trying to crawl up between my _ lungs—” _

Steve reached out and grabbed his shirt, and yanked him back in. “C’mere, babe, c’mere—”

His hands were still _ cold,  _ and Billy _ suffered,  _ shivering like the dashboard of an old truck, in fits and starts. “J-jesus god,” he whined, as Steve hooked two fingers over the top of his pants, and Steve started laughing into his shoulder. 

“It’s too cold, babe,” he whispered, wrapping his sweatered arms around Billy’s sheer cotton clad ones. 

“F-uck-k y-you,” Billy stuttered, curling his body into his boyfriend, but feeling no warmth. “I c-can t-tak-ke it.”

“Luh _ —brrr,”  _ Steve said, shivering. “Love you,” he tried again, hauling him back towards the house. 

_ “D-damn-n  _ i-it,” Billy mumbled, and Steve put an arm around him, steadying him as he stomped up the front steps, stuttering every profane word he knew. 

Steve held the door and pulled him inside, then hauled him upstairs, pushed him on the bed, and started yanking sweaters out of the closet to hold up. “Hrm,” he said, squinting over, and then attacked in the dim light from the hallway, yanking something over Billy’s head.

“Fmmrghmph!” Billy growled, and Steve sat next to him, yanking the sleeves over his numb hands, and the rest down over Billy’s belly and back. He pulled Billy close, rubbing his arms, and after his shivering subsided, Billy sighed. “Great, I’m wearing a blanket.”

“I think they’re setting up sleeping bags downstairs,” Steve said, squeezing him, and Billy squeezed him back. 

“Love you,” he hissed, as revenge, but instead of going awkward and stiff, Steve buried his face in Billy’s neck, nuzzling like friendly sandpaper. “Eugh, get _ off,”  _ Billy told him, squeezing him closer. 

“You love me,” Steve mumbled happily, and Billy rolled his eyes. “It’s almost _ Christmas,”  _ he said then, and Billy glared at the top of his head, stroking his hair.

“God, shut up,” he sighed. “I’ve _ said it before.  _ You’re such a dork.”

“Merry Christmas to me,” Steve sang, his laugh hot against Billy’s collarbone. “Merry Christmas to me, Bill-y Hargrove loves meee~ee, merry Christmas to meeeee—”

“You’re fucked in the brain,” Billy sighed, leaning his head against Steve’s.

The parents-that-be sent Will up to tiptoe along the hall calling “Steve? Billy?”, and Billy sighed, smacking a last kiss to Steve’s cheek before calling “In here!”

Steve grinned from him to Will in the dim light of the hall that shone into his room. “Had to get a sweater on Billy, he was freezing to death.”

“Oh,” Will nodded, shifting his feet awkwardly. “I think they want me out of the way while they get presents out. Um. Your room’s really...plaid.”

Steve sighed.

Billy had a thought, remembering the wrapping paper in the garage, and ditched Steve to run down there. “Anybody needs to wrap, there’s paper and tape in the garage!” he shouted, dodging cooks through the kitchen and stepping into the garage. He was joined by Claudia and Joyce fairly quickly, and resisted making any orgy jokes as they both yanked tags off presents and started rummaging through the supplies he’d laid out. “Is it weird to give Steve walkie-talkies,” Claudia Henderson asked Joyce, and Billy shook his head.

“You know he’ll just give one back to Dustin anyway,” he told her, and she beamed at him and pinched his cheek.

“All I have are Will’s colored pencils,” Joyce said, and Billy grimaced. 

“I think Will would like those better than Harrington would,” he said, “—maybe invite him for New Years instead,” he suggested, and she cocked her head, thinking, then squeezed his arm with a smile. 

Steve poked his head in, and Billy pushed him back out. “No children in here!” he announced, but Steve fought him, hanging on to the door. “You leave!” he yelled, laughing. “I need to wrap some stuff!”

“What?! Why?” Billy asked, startled, as Steve shoved him back out. Billy ended up helping Dustin find the Swiss Miss, and watching Hopper and finally Susan duck into the garage. He ignored them, and snatched the mushroom mug away from Will. “Look at this mug,” Billy said, pointing at the long, browny-orange mushrooms. “You are not old enough to be drinking out of this mug.”

Will, Dustin, and Jonathan all blinked and then started snickering, and Max came in to see what was going on, and gagged after a glance at it. “Gross,” she hissed. “You’re all gross. They’re just _ mushrooms.” _

“They don’t really look like mushrooms,” Will giggled, blushing.

Billy shrugged, slurping his hot chocolate, and then took the opportunity while Steve wasn’t around to crunch out to his car through the _ blizzard  _ and get Steve’s presents. He stomped back in just before he froze solid, brushing snow off his horse-blanket of a sweater, and remembering what Steve had said about Santa hats covering his _ best feature,  _ glaring down to see _ knit  _ covering his chest and the top of his jeans. 

Max took the packages as he stood there, snow melting into his hair, and waited until he kicked his shoes off to hand him his mug of hot chocolate, then wordlessly tromped into the front room and stuck Steve’s presents from Billy under the tree. Billy watched her blankly, the snow on the floor melting into his socks. 

He’d gotten her a scarf and hat when he _ knew  _ she wanted a skateboard repair kit, because his dad had been waiting for the receipt. Maybe Susan had actually asked, and listened. He wondered, in passing, whether Susan would keep up the traditional joke, and give him a stocking full of coal.

Billy wasn’t looking forward to his father finding out he’d blown all his Christmas-shopping money on Steve, and not presents for he and Susan, but for the moment, it was easy to relax into the warmth of the house, and the sweetness of the hot chocolate. Somebody had stuck a candy cane in it—Billy suspected Mrs. Henderson, who was hanging more of them on the tree when he wandered in to bake himself dry in front of the woodstove.

El and Max were zipping a sleeping bag together _ right  _ under the tree, and Billy scooted them a little to the side and did the same, sighing.

“You and Steve gonna sleep next to us?” asked Max, raising her eyebrows, and Billy felt himself redden, mouthing _ Santa  _ at her. She squinted at him, and he mouthed it again, feeling like a moron. El was crawling around, humming along to Frosty— _ eugh— _ so he spelled it out with his finger on the sleeping bag, slowly, in caps. _ S-A-N-T-A P-R-E-S-E-N-T-S. _

Max snorted. “Yeah, sure.”

Billy stuck his tongue out at her, and wandered back to poke his head in the garage—where he found Susan, filling two stockings with candy and mandarin oranges. She went perfectly still, lifting her chin like he was about to _ attack,  _ and he nearly pulled the door shut again, but she stuffed the stockings behind her, and he laughed, stepping inside, and pulling the door shut behind him.

“What, you afraid I’ll know there’s no Santa?” he asked, baring his teeth in a smile, and she swallowed, glancing down at her hands. “Don’t worry, I figured it out a long time ago, when my _ Christmas present  _ was a new mom who didn’t want—”

“They’re still supposed to be a surprise,” she said, taking a shaky breath. “They—they’re a surprise, you aren’t supposed to see them.”

Billy paused. “...one of those is for me? What, you put all the coal at the bottom this time, as a surprise? ‘Billy, guess what, you weren’t a waste of space this year, no wait, haha! You were!’”

“There’s no coal in these stockings,” she said, clenching her jaw. “I have _ never  _ put coal in your stockings. I would—I would never—it’s _ not funny.” _

It was cold in the garage, Billy thought, his mind wandering the way it did whenever the subject turned to whether he was worth anything. His socks were wet, in places, and he could hear Joyce Byers singing a loud, off-key rendition of _ Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree  _ through the door to the kitchen. He clasped both hands around his mug of hot chocolate, and the half-melted candy cane stuck to his thumb. 

“No coal,” Susan said softly, and Billy forced a laugh.

“Stupid, right, it’s not like I care if _ Santa  _ thinks I’m a _ good little boy.”  _ Susan bit her lip, hunching her shoulders, and Billy laughed, turning back to the kitchen. 

“Wait! Thank you,” she said, and he turned back to frown at her. “I—I know you wanted Christmas with your friend,” she said, laughing nervously. “I—thank you for having us. Me.”

“...oh,” he laughed. “I’m just your gateway to Max, right?”

“No!” she said, looking like she was gonna cry, and Billy kind of enjoyed it, thinking of all the times she’d just watched as her husband slammed him around the house. _ Guess I do deserve the coal,  _ he thought, smiling, though it wasn’t really funny. “No,” she said again. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I—I’m glad you’ve found a-a way out. And you—you’ll graduate soon. You can get a job.”

“What,” he said, squeezing his mushroom mug harder, to feel the edges of the ceramic dig into his hands. 

“Once—” she started, then stopped, and he recognized the effort to keep sobs silent. “Once you’re safe,” she forced out, “—I can get us away,” she said, her eyes spilling over with tears. “I—I know you—you _ mustn’t say anything,  _ Billy, please. D-don’t say anything to him, I know you—I know you want him to—to be proud of you, but please don’t—”

“I-I wouldn’t,” he whispered back, dropping down to sit on the step to the kitchen, because suddenly his knees felt weak.

She took a shuddering breath, nodding. “Did you spend the money Neil gave you on Steve?”

Billy set his jaw. “Yeah.”

“I saved some receipts you can give him,” she said. “They’re wrapped, you can write the tags,” and Billy felt weirdly warm, wondering what else she’d done to protect him.

“I won’t tell him you’re leaving him,” he promised, leaning his head in his arms. “God. _ Fuck.  _ Why didn’t you…” he trailed off, sighing, and remembering when he’d have been only too proud to have been a _ good  _ little boy, and run to his father to snitch. “...did you get Max a skateboard kit?” he asked, and heard Susan’s movements stop.

“...Neil said he would,” she said, slowly.

“...bet he didn’t,” Billy said, feeling his heart pound at the disloyalty, in front of, he’d thought, his father’s most steadfast supporter.

“I bet he didn’t,” she agreed, sighing, and Billy pushed himself to his feet. 

“I’ll write her a note. Take her next week,” he said, cautiously, and Susan choked out a laugh, sniffling. 

“You definitely don’t deserve coal.”

By the time Billy left the garage, he was determined not to let any adults get him alone _ ever again.  _ His heart couldn’t take it, he thought, edging around Mrs. Henderson in case she drug him into the pantry to have a heart-to-heart. 

Steve was sitting on their zipped-together sleeping bags, beaming up at the enormous tree, and Billy made for him, only to be waylaid by Hopper, who reached out, prodded his bicep, and stepped back, hands spread. 

“Steve! Get over here,” he called, and Steve looked up and saw him and Billy, and trotted over, ridiculous smile wide. Billy added to his count of missed kiss opportunities, determined to claim his rightful property, just as Hopper yanked them into a football huddle by the shoulders. “You boys ready to go?” he asked, waving Jonathan over.

“Ready to _ sleep,  _ maybe,” Billy muttered, hoping his Christmas eve wasn’t about to get any more exciting. 

“As soon as they’re asleep, hang the stockings and put the presents out,” Hopper hissed, grinning wider than Billy’d ever seen him—and apparently found an ally in Steve, who nodded like they were going to war. He even _ saluted,  _ and Billy elbowed him hard in the ribs as Hopper narrowed his eyes. “So they’re _ ready.” _

“You’re gonna throw shit on the roof at like six in the morning,” Billy groaned. “Aren’t you.”

Hopper’s grin went a little smug, and Billy repressed the urge to run over to the sleeping bags, crawl in head first, and refuse to come out until May.

“We’re ready,” Steve whispered back.

“The stockings are all ready,” Jonathan said, nodding.

“We could liquor up their hot chocolate,” Billy suggested, half-serious. “Knock ‘em out early.” Steve, Jonathan, and Hopper all laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Merry Christmas! Thank you so much for wandering in! Lemme know if you liked my story--I lovelovelove hearing from people! Kudos! Short comments! Long comments! Questions! Constructive criticism! Comments as extra kudos! Thanks so, so much! XD**  
>  (I try to reply to each one, but if you don't want a response to your comment then please say "No reply please" or "Whisper" so I'll know not to reply.)
> 
> **[Reblog this fic!](https://platypanthewriter.tumblr.com/post/639165790979014656/my-yuletide-exchange-fic)  
>  **
> 
> Like my writing? =D Follow my writing progress and WIPs on Tumblr at [Platypan the writer!](https://platypanthewriter.tumblr.com/) Subscribe to the Harringrove without everything else at [Unrelated Harringrove Works Series!](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624003)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the smut! Marked by a horizontal line.

What hadn’t occurred to Billy while planning for Santa was how long he and Steve would have to lie silently, waiting for the whispers around them to subside. The kids kept eating the Santa cookies, and then getting up to get more, and Will had the giggles about _something._ He kept wriggling out of the sleeping bags to put on more Christmas carols. 

El kept sitting up at the slightest noise, staring suspiciously out the window, and Max wasn’t _helping,_ all “What was that? Did you hear something?”

Jonathan’s shoulders shook suspiciously over on the couch, but at least he was _quiet._

Steve didn’t let Billy throw anything at Max and El, and when Billy started to suggest knocking _Dustin and Will_ out with blunt force trauma instead, Steve cupped his face with both hands, smiling at him in the light of the tree. They were scooted down far enough in the zipped-together sleeping bags that the edge shielded them from sight, their knees touching, and Billy let his eyes close as he leaned into Steve’s warm hands. 

“Love you,” Billy whispered, almost inaudibly. “See, it’s _romantic_ now.”

“It’s always romantic,” Steve whispered back, which Billy should have expected, honestly, from the man he’d had to _flee_ earlier because he was professing his love _loudly in the grocery store_ over Billy’s choice in _mustard._

“Loser,” Billy sighed, squirming closer, and biting back a laugh at the feeling of Steve kissing his forehead, and his ears, and across his cheeks to his eyelids, and down his nose. Billy reached out and grabbed his boyfriend by the back of the neck, pulling him into a _real_ kiss, but soft, so the kids couldn’t hear. “Merry goddamn Christmas,” he whispered, under the annoying, tinny tones of Marie and Donnie Osmond, apparently taped from the TV special. Steve snorted a laugh against his lips, and Billy could feel him grinning. 

“Thanks,” Steve whispered, and Billy stroked his thumb over the base of Steve’s skull, and the shell of his ear, feeling the muscles move as he smiled.

“All I did was get out of your way,” Billy whispered. “But I get you tomorrow night, Harrington.”

“No, you—you did all this,” Steve whispered back. “I wouldn’t’ve thought of inviting the Byers. Or the tree. You invited Dustin.”

“Dustin invited himself,” Billy pointed out, and Steve nodded, squirming closer. 

“You said it was okay,” he whispered. “I’d be...this’d be every other Christmas,” he laughed, a little catch in his voice, and pressed in for another kiss, murmuring against Billy’s lips, “Except for _you._ Love you. Babe. Billy Hargrove.”

“...I haven’t even killed you a reindeer yet,” Billy told him, his face so hot he could feel the blood pounding in his ears. “Jesus.”

“I love you anyway,” Steve whispered, kissing his face again. “I’m generous that way. Y’know. Even to _losers_ who can’t even bring me a reindeer.”

 _Thank god,_ Billy thought, turning his head to kiss deeper, tasting frosting, and feeling Steve tremble against him, panting for breath. _Thank god he shut up about loving me. Thank god he loves a loser who doesn’t bring him reindeer._ He slid his hand up inside Steve’s shirt, under his sweater, and felt his breath hitch. Steve slid a socked foot over, hooking Billy’s leg by the ankle to sandwich their knees together, so their bodies were close enough to feel warm.

“Let’s sing carols,” Dustin said _loudly,_ and Steve scrambled away, sat up in the zipped-together sleeping bags, and beaned him with a pillow he yanked off the couch, which had the fortunate side effect of dumping Jonathan Byers' ass on the floor. He yelled.

Billy should have expected the _thankfully brief_ pillow fight, in which Will got the giggles so bad he fell over, Dustin took a three-pointer in the face from Max, and Jonathan Byers threw pillows at Steve, missing every time.

El smacked everyone indiscriminately, and Steve tried to be some kind of _stealth ninja_ slithering around on sleeping bags while Billy called out plays like a sports announcer, but after they all flopped horizontal again, panting, the kid’s giggles finally petered off, and then there was silence.

It was time.

“How come _I_ didn’t get a home run,” Steve whispered as they retrieved El’s bike from where Hopper’d slid it under the table, as Jonathan tiptoed off for the stockings.

“Didn’t hit the ceiling beam,” Billy whispered back, making it up as he went along. “Gotta hit the ceiling beam before it drops on somebody.” 

“I should have got a penalty shot when they all ganged up on me,” Steve huffed, sitting out Dustin’s Commodore 64 games, and Will’s new markers. There was a photography book for Jonathan, and Billy waited until Steve wandered off to stick the two albums he’d bought him kinda behind it— _Joan Jett and the Blackhearts,_ and _The Police: Synchronicity._ Steve used one of his dad’s ski boots to make an ash print by the stove, before helping Jonathan prop stockings up not-too-near the fireplace, so the chocolate inside wouldn’t melt by morning.

Max had new walkie-talkies too, and Billy sat them out with mixed feelings, wondering who the second one would go to—her mom?! He hailed Steve over to have him write a note, too— _Dear Max,_ it said, _I have given your step-brother Billy a little Christmas spirit, so he’ll drive you to get a skateboard repair kit._

“Why am _I_ writing it,” Steve hissed.

“She knows my handwriting, dingus,” said Billy, knowing she didn’t believe in _Santa,_ but also buying in, a little, to the illusion.

Steve looked at him for a long second, and then yanked him in for a kiss.

They’d barely climbed back in their sleeping bags when Billy heard _bells,_ and thought _really, Hopper? Fuck you. Really?!_

El sprang up, stumbling sleepily over Dustin and Will to the window, and from their grunts and muttered expletives, possibly doing internal damage. “Bells,” El mumbled, squinting outside just as they all jumped at the loud _thud,_ and scraping noise, and El turned to stare at Max and yell “It’s his _sleigh!_ It’s his _sleigh!”_ before peeling off to run out the back door to stare up at the sky as Max fixed a sleepy, but extremely suspicious, glower on Billy.

“The fuck was _that,”_ she hissed, and Steve said “Santa!”

“Go away, Santa, too early,” Dustin mumbled, and Billy’s liking for the kid grew three sizes that moment.

“It’s not even two in the morning,” Steve whispered, laughing, and pointing to the digital clock on the VCR, but Mrs. Henderson, Joyce, and Susan all stumbled downstairs, shivering and blinking sleepily, followed by Hopper.

He hummed as he put the kettle on, rubbing his hands together as his kid froze outside like The Little Match Girl, looking for Santa in her pajamas, and Billy finally went to the door with Dustin and yelled “El! Get in here, you’ll freeze!”

She yelled something back, but it got lost in the _arctic wind,_ until she ran back, shivering, and held out a half-eaten carrot like she’d found the Holy Grail. “They dropped this!” she whispered, and Billy dropped a blanket on her head, and walked away to stand by the fire as Dustin pulled her inside, and Will saw his Santa-given markers and yelled. 

Steve came up and threw his arms around Billy, either out of joy, or the realization he needed to stop his boyfriend from _murdering the sheriff._

The kids all milled around the tree, Dustin’s fingers actually twitching towards the games, but they all noticed the _time,_ and stared warily at their parents—except _El,_ who was wrapped up in a blanket in the arms of the _main offender,_ her snowflake-patterned socks sticking out as she yelled something muffled about Santa.

“Guess we’re opening presents now!” said Joyce Byers, grinning as she watched Jonathan catch sight of the photography book, and Will sitting, cross legged in front of his markers, his eyes wide and fixed on their target. El found her bike and yelled, snatching the note, and Max frowned at the handwriting over her shoulder, then fixed a startled frown on Billy, who shrugged. Max's eyes narrowed as El ran to show Hopper the note, and Billy looked away, watching Dustin rub his face briskly and trundle over to sit under the tree. 

Dustin passed his mom a package, grinning up at her, and she crouched to hug his head.

“You’re all _insane,”_ Billy whispered, warming to the idea of Christmas, a bit, as El passed him more hot chocolate, even though Jonathan immediately ruined everything by putting the _Rudolph_ Christmas special on the VCR.

“Euuuugh,” Billy groaned, leaning his head against Steve’s. 

In the ensuing melee, Billy ducked around flung Star Wars toys, Legos, what looked like a camping tent, a Ghostbusters baseball cap, and a rainbow of hats and scarves from Mrs. Henderson, who’d apparently made some for everyone there. 

“How’d you have _time,”_ Joyce breathed, running her fingers over a pattern in brown and green, and Claudia Henderson shrugged. 

“Dustin’s cousins never send thank you cards anyway,” she said, grinning and handing packages to Billy, Steve, and Hopper. 

Billy squeezed his, blinking at her, and she patted his shoulder. If _Claudia Henderson_ could brave the wrapping-paper explosion, so could he, he figured, so he edged around to grab Steve’s stocking, and handed it over. “I’m giving this to you on one knee,” he whispered, and Steve blinked at him, then stared down at the stocking. 

Instead of pulling out orange after orange, as Billy’d _anticipated,_ Steve dumped it over his lap in a shower of fruit and walnuts, and burst out laughing at the ring-pop Billy’d stuck in the bottom. He yanked the wrapper open and put it on his finger, admiring the huge cherry candy gem, and leaned to whisper _“I do.”_

Billy flushed and scrambled away to find his _actual_ presents for his boyfriend, rather than watch Steve _stare into his eyes,_ swirling his tongue around his ring-pop, his mouth already red from the food coloring. Billy scrambled half under the tree and yanked out the first aid kit, and the cold-weather kit with handwarmers and foil blankets, and passed them up to Steve, who looked startled unwrapping them, then fond.

“I’ll be ready for anything,” he said, and Billy snorted. 

_“Can_ you be ready for anything in _Hawkins?”_ Billy shot back, and Steve beamed at him. 

Billy’s Santa presents for Steve, the albums, had been snatched up by Will and Jonathan, he realized after crawling around. They surrendered them after arranging some copies in trade, and Billy handed them over to their proper recipient while Steve stared at the pile of presents growing around him, and agreed to give one of his new walkie-talkies to Dustin. 

Which made sense, Billy thought, it wasn't like Billy even knew how to use the damn thing. He didn't even know if he lived close enough to Steve for the damn thing to work, and it was probably more important to Steve that the _kids_ could find him when they found _monsters._

Steve was wearing one of his new mittens on the hand without the ring-pop, and the matching burgundy scarf, and Billy sat and watched him as he opened the note from Joyce, inviting him for New Years, and grinned at her.

Billy forgot he was in the middle of the whole Christmas mess until Max punched him in the shoulder, and shoved the note Steve had written in front of his face. “This true?” she asked, scowling. “You’re gonna take me to _buy a skate kit.”_

“Yeah,” he said, shrugging, and she stared. 

“Santa _is_ real,” she muttered, crawling back over to where El was trying on her new bike helmet.

Steve pushed his haul aside, pausing to blink at a wrapped package from _Susan,_ and waved Billy over as he slowly ripped it open. Two packaged Hot Wheels cars spilled out into his lap—a BMW and a Camaro, and Steve looked delighted. "They're our _cars,"_ he whispered, grinning at Billy, his eyes sparkling in the lights from the tree as he ripped the cardboard off the backs, and touched their front bumpers gently together.

Billy shoved them down, hissing, _"Don't make our cars kiss."_

"But they're in love," Steve whispered back, bumping them together again, and Billy leaned his face in his hand and groaned. 

He glanced over at Susan, sitting next to Max and El as El told his stepmom about things you could put in bike wheels to make noise. He couldn't picture _Susan Hargrove_ going through the toy aisle, finding their _cars,_ and he wondered for a wild moment if _Max_ had, but that was even harder to picture. Steve kissed the cars bumpers together again, making a smoochy noise, and Billy elbowed him. He couldn't figure out what the cars had even been _for—_ she wouldn't have given them to _him—_ so the remaining option was Susan had shopped for _Steve,_ intending the whole time to give him little toy cars in a mismatched pair. 

Steve put both cars in his hand, their undercarriages pressed together, and rolled their tires together with a sly grin, and Billy smacked his hand again, reddening. “Okay, so,” Steve said finally, “—I didn’t know you’d want to come.”

“It’s fine,” Billy laughed, but Steve shook him gently by the shoulders. 

“No, it’s not, but I gotta find you something better than what _Bradley's Big Buy had,_ okay. All I got you was this—” he pushed a squishy package into Billy’s hands, and Billy ripped it open to find a soft sweater, clingier than the horse blanket Steve had pulled over his head earlier. “It’s the color of your—no, it’s not,” Steve said, squinting into his face, and Billy started snickering as Steve grabbed him by both arms and pushed him closer to the tree, then pulled him back, then walked him through the all the sprawled kids and around the other side. “There,” Steve said proudly. “It’s the color of your eyes.”

“I can’t see them,” Billy reminded him, grinning, and Steve stared at his mouth, licking his own lips, then groaned quietly in the back of his throat and stalked back to the couch, sucking on the ring-pop.

“Billy,” said Susan, holding out two rectangular department-store boxes with fancy bows, and Billy bit his lips together and sat down right where he was, lifting the lid on the top one. It was a button-down like he _liked,_ the same brand he was wearing, in a deep oceany blue, and he bit his lips together, frowning into the box. 

“Neil was busy, so I told him he didn't need to...supervise the shopping,” she said. “It should be the right size.”

Billy nodded, putting the lid back on, and opened the other, bigger box to see a wool coat, thick but tailored. He narrowed his eyes and put it on, and Steve whistled like a goddamn _train._ Billy ignored him, tugging at it and zipping up the front, and for once, dressed for the outdoors, didn’t feel like he was wearing an entire mattress tied to his chest. “...thanks,” he said, feeling his face heat, and avoiding looking up at her face by testing the size of the pockets. 

“Don’t freeze to death,” Susan told him, sighing, and handed him his stocking. He pulled out Mr. T’s Candy Cups, and Nerds, and some oranges, and Starburst, and then felt something thick. He thought _this better not be a fucking bag of coal,_ after she said she didn’t even think it was funny. 

It was a pair of socks, warm and soft, and he considered them for a second before placing them in his lap, and reaching in to find a cassette of David Bowie’s _Let’s Dance._ He was just pulling out some Twix bars when Max dropped next to him, and he pulled his candy back towards him, narrowing his eyes at her.

“I got my own candy, dipshit,” she said, rolling her eyes, and fiddling with her new, shiny walkie-talkies. "The hat's warm."

Billy grimaced. "We'll get you the board repair kit."

"...he told you not to buy it, didn't he," she said heavily, and Billy winced, opening his mouth.

“Everybody done?” Joyce yelled, and Max opened her mouth and closed it again, gripping the walkie-talkie, but Joyce walked by and patted her shoulder, calling out, “Everybody done with presents? Okay! Go the _hell_ to bed.” Max scuttled away to her sleeping bag, and Joyce prodded Hopper in the side, which he ignored. She cupped her hands around her mouth, shouting up at him. “Bedtime!”

“It’s morning,” Dustin said, snickering, but he covered a yawn, and Will walked over to his side of their shared sleeping bags, his arms filled with loot, and collapsed in a smiling pile. 

“Fine, fine,” Hopper said, clapping his hands. “Everybody back to bed! G’night!”

Max opened her mouth, frowning at him, then sighed, and lurched tiredly to her feet, stumbling away. Steve came over and sat in her spot, throwing his arm around Billy, and sucking his ring-pop, and they sat and stared at the tree as the kids crawled back into their sleeping bags, Rudolph’s dad was terrible on the TV, and the adults all shuffled back upstairs. 

“Love you,” Steve whispered.

“I heard those were invented to stop kids sucking their thumbs,” Billy whispered back, flicking Steve's hand with the ring-pop.

“It’s definitely been handy when I wanted to suck on things,” Steve said agreeably, and Billy choked, coughing, as Steve slurped away at his cherry ring-pop, looking smug.

Billy woke the next day alone in the sleeping bag, and tender where he’d rolled on his belt, and where the seams of his jeans had sanded his legs. He groaned into the soft blue-green sweater he was using as a pillow, and smelled _food_. 

Nancy’d shown up, he found out, when he sat up like a groundhog blinking at the sun. She was on the couch with Jonathan, flipping through a different photo book in black and white. They both blinked at Billy, and then waved silently, and he waved back, looking around for Steve, and hoping Steve’s ex and her new beau didn’t try to include Billy in their conversation.

Steve was running back and forth from the kitchen, carrying plates and wearing an intent grin, and Billy watched him for a few minutes before clambering out of the sleeping bag. The others were rolled up, he noticed, and tried to zip his apart. He caught the ties in the zipper, _somehow,_ and was trying to figure out whether he could just roll them _together_ when Will dropped to sit next to him, eager to leverage his sleeping-bag-taming knowledge for copies of all Billy’s music.

Billy considered, aware of Nancy and Jonathan trying not to watch him repeatedly lose his battle with a squishy inanimate object, and finally agreed. “You figure this shit out and I’ll copy you the new Def Leppard,” he whispered, and Will _hugged_ him, which was just—weird, so he waited until it was over, and walked away, trying to fix his hair by feel.

Lucas and Max showed up that afternoon, Mike was there, Billy registered vaguely, giving all the appropriate compliments to El about her bike, and Billy dozed on Steve’s shoulder in a turkey coma and let the Christmas carols float over him. 

Just after he _thought_ they’d left again, the floor pounded as Max stalked up to him and slapped the new walkie-talkie in his hand. “Everybody else has one,” she said, glaring at it, turning on her heel, and stalking off. Billy stared after her, wondering whether she honestly couldn't find someone to give it to. He'd seen Lucas', and it was twice the size.

“Ooo, I have one!” Steve said excitedly. “We can talk when you can’t get to the phone!”

Billy glanced up at him, and back down, imagining being able to call Steve when his door was padlocked from the outside, and bit his lips together. He nodded, and cleared his throat. “I, uh, yeah. I’ll...get some batteries.”

“I’ve got some,” Steve said, squirming away, then dropping beside him again to hand over an eight-pack of Energizers. “Dustin gave me some for mine.”

“...might use this thing a lot,” Billy said warningly, flicking the buttons, and Steve laughed. 

“Good, I don’t wanna feel needy.”

Before everyone left, Billy got hugs from Joyce and Mrs. Henderson—he couldn’t think of her as Claudia, not when she was wearing an apron and reminded him so much of Mrs. Claus—a companionable shoulder-squeeze from Hopper, and a tense smile from Susan. El asked whether they could come back next year, explaining how Santa got lost sometimes without woodstoves, and Steve nodded seriously, agreeing to everything she said. 

Jonathan shook Billy's hand like an awkward nerd, while Will tried to convince them to hang out and listen to music together, until El started questioning them all about music, and Hopper drug her away. As Jonathan, Will, El, and Hopper stumbled off in a hand-holding chain like Billy's paper-doll garland, Billy felt a tap on the shoulder, and turned to see Joyce Byers again.

"Jonathan and Will showed me the car," she said. "It looks really nice."

"They vacuumed it," Steve said, laughing and waving his hands, and Billy rolled his eyes.

"Steve fixed it so your battery will charge right, and changed your oil," he reported, and Steve laughed, grinning, then went wide-eyed as Joyce hugged them both around the necks, yanking them down even though she stood on her tiptoes.

"Thanks so much, you two," she said, sounding a little choked. "You're such good kids. You're _such_ good kids."

Steve made a weird noise in his throat, and Billy's eyes skipped the stinging and went straight to blurry with tears, so he pulled away, clearing his throat, and made a show of lighting a cigarette. 

"A-anytime," Steve said, laughing a little unnaturally. He folded his arms, unfolded them, and bit his lips, and Joyce squeezed his shoulder.

"Thank you," she said earnestly, and he nodded. 

Billy threw an arm around him as Joyce walked away. Dustin glanced between Billy and Steve and saluted, laughing and shaking his head, and Nancy waved again from the car window. Steve waved back.

“We look like the parents in a Christmas special,” Billy said, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Steve, and waving at departing cars. "Like a sitcom." Steve snorted a laugh, wiping his eyes.

* * *

After they’d all gone, Billy leaned in the doorway between the kitchen and the front room, watching Steve pick up a couple pieces of wrapping paper, and sigh. He sat under the tree, holding a piece of Mrs. Henderson’s ugliest wrapping paper, covered in brown and orange angels that looked like a hollow-eyed Strawberry Shortcake. Steve stretched it flat, and bit his lips together, before crumpling it, his shoulders a little bowed.

“...you don’t think Chriatmas is _over,_ do you?” Billy asked, wandering closer.

“What?” Steve laughed, his eyes lowered. “I mean, it’s still the 25th. I guess. Christmas until midnight.”

“Yeah, that too,” Billy agreed, coming up behind him to reach around with both arms and take the sad crumpled Christmas paper away. He tossed it behind the tree, and Steve snorted a laugh, leaning back into his arms. “But we haven’t even gotten our best present yet,” he whispered, letting his breath tickle Steve’s ear, so he shivered. “This is the part I’ve been waiting for.” Steve opened his mouth, shrugging, and Billy yanked him around so they were nose to nose. “I got the biggest present under the tree,” Billy hissed, “—and I’ve been _so patient,_ don’t you dare tell me Christmas is over _now.”_

Steve grinned at him, wide and delighted, and Billy squished his face with both hands, making his grin kissable. 

Having had plenty of time to plan, Billy grabbed one of the sleeping bags, unrolled it, and tossed it under the tree, towards the fire. Steve pulled him over for a deeper kiss this time, soft and exploratory, as though he didn’t know every hitch of Billy’s breath, and the way he trembled when Steve bit gently at his lower lip, and let it pull through his teeth. “Jesus god of reindeer,” Billy whispered muzzily, and Steve burst out laughing.

 _“What,”_ he said. _“What?”_

“You,” Billy said hoarsely, and cleared his throat, trying to remember his script. “You wanna put on, like, your Christmas songs. Or—or movies. Or something.”

“...you wanna fuck me to _Rudolph?”_ Steve asked, looking a little weirded out, and Billy gritted his teeth, and committed, for the sake of love. 

“You want your _Christmas shit_ playing when you get _presents,_ right.”

“...jesus,” Steve whispered, head cocked like Billy was _crazy,_ but beaming all the same. “Uh.” He flushed, biting his lips as he narrowed his eyes at the TV and VCR, and then the tape player. “Uh, just music, maybe.”

“Yeah, I don’t know about _Rudolph,”_ Billy grimaced, imagining the little reindeer’s nasal tones, and the nitwit misfit song. “I mean, if you _want_ to, but I’m gonna...good thing I already know how fucking _weird_ you are—”

 _“I_ didn’t come up with—with this _Rudolph sex orgy_ idea,” Steve hissed back, poking him in the chest.

Billy shrugged, rubbing it. “I really don’t know what’s weirder about that than listening to, like, _The Carpenters,_ or _John Denver and the Muppets,”_ he said, waiting while Steve blew the dust off the record player, and frowned between _The Jackson 5 Christmas Album_ and _A Partridge Family Christmas Card._ “Or those,” Billy said, making a face at little Michael Jackson, and sitting on the sleeping bag, waiting while his dick strained against the inside of his jeans.

“Just don’t think too much about it,” Steve muttered, crouching down to put on _A Partridge Family_ with pink cheeks, and Billy waited until the speakers crackled and Mr. Partridge started singing to grab Steve around the waist. 

Billy pulled his boyfriend's butt half into his lap, where he could slide his hands up Steve’s sides, lifting his sweater and shirt, and kissing the skin between his shoulder blades. Steve laughed, and leaned his head back against Billy’s shoulder for a kiss. Billy gave him one—then two—then stared at Steve’s startled grin, and sighed, brushing their lips together as the magnetic pull hauled him back in, and Steve gave a muffled laugh and a contented noise deep in his throat, closing his eyes. He tasted sweet, like the cookies he’d been eating, even sweeter than usual, and Billy groaned and shoved Steve forward again in order to push his sweater and shirt up over his shoulders, white from winter, and scattered with birthmarks. Billy kissed a few of them. 

“Better keep me warm,” Steve whispered, curling up in his arms, and Billy pulled him in as tight as he could, burying his probably goofy-looking grin in Steve’s hair. 

“Oh, I’ll warm you up,” he whispered, and Steve snickered, relaxed against him as Billy slid his hands around Steve's waist, and down to undo his boyfriend’s jeans. Steve groaned, shivering as Billy pulled his cock out—it was already satisfyingly hard in his hand, and Billy rubbed the edge of his thumb across it, so Steve grunted and squirmed in his lap. “...guess the Partridge Family really does it for you,” Billy whispered.

“Shut your face,” Steve mumbled, panting. _“You_ do it for me, we could be—we could be listening to like. Bird calls, I don’t give a fuck—”

“You saying Tweety Bird gets your motor running,” Billy whispered back, and Steve elbowed him, mostly hitting sweater. 

“Fuck you,” he hissed, his hips jerking so his dick bumped against Billy’s thumb again, into his hand, and Billy squeezed it, the wetness letting his thumb slide easily over the tip. “Oh jesus,” Steve whispered. “God…”

“Lay down,” Billy said, biting his shoulder gently, and Steve arched against him, groaning. “Come on, your majesty, I’m not even done unwrapping you yet.”

“...nerd,” Steve snorted, panting, but he let himself be pressed back onto the sleeping bag, his cock sliding against Billy’s hand as Billy held him down, gently, by the lower belly, tugging his jeans off. Steve bent his legs up to let Billy yank the legs off without having to move, and Billy laughed as he tugged Steve’s socks off, and tossed them away. Steve grinned up at him, his face lit by the lights on the tree, making him look a little starry. 

“There,” Billy said, rubbing his free hand up Steve’s thigh. He leaned in to kiss his boyfriend’s naked dick, and Steve yelped, moaning in the back of his throat. 

“What—about you,” he grunted, his voice a little rough. “You gonna raw me in your jeans?” 

He sounded _hungry_ at the thought, and Billy filed that away for later. “Nah,” he whispered, swinging a leg over so he was sitting across his boyfriend’s thighs. “Thought I’d make you watch me, for a bit,” he said, sliding two fingers in his mouth, and sucking on them. 

Steve muttered “Oh, shit,” and propped himself up on his elbows. 

“Now you got me in this damn...Mr. Rogers sweater,” Billy said, keeping his voice low as he drug his fingers down it, Steve’s gaze fixed on them as his dick leaked.

“Don’t talk about Mr. Rogers, gross,” he whispered, and Billy grinned, swinging his hips a little from side to side so Steve's naked thighs could feel the warmth of his ass through jeans. “Jesus,” Steve muttered, clenching his fists as Billy slid both hands around his own waist _just_ under the edge of the sweater, lifting them up underneath against his sides, and Steve laughed a little unevenly, his eyes widening. 

Billy lifted the sweater a little more, running his fingers lightly over his abs, and then his pecs as they flexed with his arms up in the damn sweater, and Steve swallowed visibly. Billy pulled the sweater off his shoulders and head, shaking his hair back, and flexed his arms as he pulled the sweater sleeves off. 

Steve threw his head back laughing. “Love you,” he said, always picking the weirdest times. 

“We’re _boning to the Partridge Family,”_ Billy hissed, instantly irritated. “If this _fuckery_ isn’t love I don’t know _what_ is.”

“I know,” Steve said, his smile soft even as his cock dripped on his belly. “Thanks for boning me to the Partridge Family.”

“Shut the hell up, I’m _stripping,”_ Billy growled, and Steve started laughing again, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes, and Billy swore and leaned in to kiss him, flattening him to the ground, and wiping the wetness away from his boyfriend’s eyes with his knuckles. “The fuck is wrong with you,” he muttered, and Steve snickered, sniffling. “You want me to hurry up?”

“No,” Steve laughed, swallowing a suspicious gulping sound, and Billy frowned harder. “I just like this,” Steve whispered, laughing, his eyes welling up again. “I like this Christmas.”

“Are you gonna do this every year?” Billy asked in horror, imagining his boyfriend crying through sex while puppets wailed in the background, and Steve laughed harder, wiping his face. 

“You saying you’re gonna bone me under the tree every year?” he asked, and Billy felt his face heat. Steve grinned, reaching up to tuck Billy’s curls out of his face, behind his ear. “In sickness and in health?”

“Why are you _so weird,”_ Billy groaned, rocking his hips, so Steve grunted, closing his eyes. “Yes. Yeah. Next year we’ll fuck to _Frosty,_ can I get back to _stripping_ now?”

“Yeah,” Steve laughed, sniffling. “I love you. Yeah.”

“Christ,” Billy muttered, wiping his boyfriend’s eyes and cheeks again, his own eyes stinging a little—probably with _embarrassment,_ he thought, fairly sure he was gonna get a half-chub every time he heard the _Partridge Family_ playing, for the rest of his _life._

Steve was still hard, at least—which was more disconcerting than anything—so Billy sighed, and rolled his hips again, as a reset. Every time he did, his fly brushed the bottom of Steve’s dick, and he groaned, rocking his head back against the sleeping bag. He was starting to sweat, and the light of the tree made him glisten.

“Look at me,” Billy told him, and Steve folded his arms behind his head to see. Billy ran his fingers up his new blue shirt—cupping his sides like his hands were Steve’s, and then running his hands up along the buttons to undo the first one.

“Never seen you with your shirt all the way on before,” Steve whispered, his eyes fond, and Billy snorted.

“Can’t let up on the advertising campaign,” he said. “Gotta show you the goods.” 

“No, you don’t,” Steve reached down to squeeze Billy’s thigh through his jeans. Billy undid another button, parting the fabric over his collarbones, and running his hands down his neck, and Steve leaned his head on one shoulder, smiling up. “I’m not gonna...forget, jesus,” he whispered. “Never gonna forget what you look like, babe.”

Billy grabbed the sweater and leaned in to lift Steve’s head into a kiss, tucking the sweater behind it as a pillow. 

“God,” Steve whispered against his mouth, running his hands over Billy’s half-unbuttoned shirt. 

Billy sat back upright again, while Steve groaned and grabbed at his shirt as he pulled away. Billy undid another button, letting his nails scrape along his skin as he scooped his pendant into his mouth, swaying his hips. He slid his fingers down over the remaining buttons to brush over the edge of his belt, raising his eyebrows at Steve, who laughed, panting.

“Yeah, I’m watching, loverboy.” Steve leaned back on one elbow, smiling smugly, and Billy watched the low golden light on his boyfriend’s face and hair.

Billy ran his fingers over his fly, and down _in_ his pants, tugging his shirt tails out one by one, and swayed his hips in a slow figure-eight as Steve bucked a little under him, grinning.

“Gonna be New Years by the time you’re done, jesus,” Steve said, his gaze riveted to Billy’s hands. 

“Can’t keep it up, there, pretty boy?” Billy asked, arching his back as he undid the lowest button, and then parted his shirt like a curtain and undid the one above it to show his taut belly and the trail of hair leading into his jeans. 

“Not the problem,” Steve said through gritted teeth, the fingers on his free hand digging into Billy’s thighs. 

Billy stopped, looking down to unbutton his cuff and roll it up a couple of times, humming carelessly as Steve squirmed under him, smacking his leg. 

“Hurry up, you _bastard,”_ he demanded, and Billy smiled, unbuttoning the other cuff. 

“You gonna ask nicely?” he asked, and Steve laughed, shifting under him with a grimace. “You’re leaking like a hose connection with a bad washer.”

“Shut _up,”_ Steve hissed. “Like you aren’t _making me.”_

“Maybe I should stop,” Billy said, stretching so his shirt lifted.

“Please, please, you _dickhead,”_ Steve broke. “My legs are _fucking_ going to sleep, and my dick’s gonna explode—”

“Thought you _loved_ me,” Billy said, licking his lips, and leaning in so his stomach brushed Steve’s dick. Steve yelped, groaning, and bucking up into the friction. “Isn’t that what you were saying earlier? King Steve, the chosen one?”

“Love you a lot more if you let me _touch,”_ Steve growled, laughing. As Billy sat up, Steve reached out and yanked at his belt, and Billy laughed, smacking Steve’s hand away.

“Thought you didn’t want Christmas to be over,” Billy whispered, and Steve laughed harder, his cock dripping across his stomach. 

“Yeah,” he admitted, leaning back with a shaky breath. “Yeah, I don’t. Never want this to be over.” His knuckles went white as his fingers tightened on Billy’s swaying thighs.

The Partridge Family switched to _Winter Wonderland,_ and Billy’s side was warmed by the fire. He knew the light of it gilded his hair and skin as he flexed his bare forearms, sliding a finger under the leather strap of his belt as Steve groaned. 

Billy flicked it out of the belt loops, tugging it off the tongue of the buckle and slowly drawing it loose over his fly. Steve twitched under him, swallowing back a noise as Billy’s jeans brushed his cock. “You want me to fuck you?” Billy asked, undoing the buttons of his jeans one-by-one so Steve could see he was going commando, and pressing his thumb and forefinger together in a tight circle over his own dick, so Steve’s bounced untouched on his stomach.

“Holy shit,” Steve breathed, looking him over, and Billy grinned. 

“Want me to do all the work,” Billy whispered, swaying his hips with the music, “—so all you have to do is lie there?”

“Anything,” Steve said. “Love you, jesus.”

Billy’s hand stuttered, and he leaned forward again, bracing himself over Steve’s chest. “Tell me,” he said. “You want me to ride you? What?”

“I want everything,” Steve said, his eyes wide and soft, and then he grinned. “I mean, we got so many leftovers to get through. Whatever we don’t do now—”

“How can you be such a romantic and such a shithead,” Billy muttered, reaching down to squeeze his boyfriend’s hand. 

“Fuck me just like that,” Steve said. “Your party jeans and that shirt. You look like—you’re a _wet dream,_ jesus.” Billy grinned, cocking his head and licking his lips, and Steve laughed shakily. “Yeah, come on, asshole,” he whispered. “Billy.”

“Yeah,” Billy said, scrounging around in the back of the TV cabinet where he’d hidden the lube, and pulling the condom out of his back pocket. He squirted some lube in his hand, and pushed Steve’s legs up to slide his hand between them, watching him squirm against the cold.

“Warm it up, dickhead,” Steve muttered, grabbing his wrist, but as soon as Billy started sliding his fingers up and down, Steve relaxed, going boneless with one leg bent up, the other sprawled to the side. His eyes went half-lidded as he grinned up in the starry rainbow lights.

Billy watched him pant in the light of the Christmas tree, and smiled, holding Steve’s hips flat to the floor with one hand, and bending to slip his mouth over his boyfriend’s cock.

 _“Jesus_ christ,” Steve grunted, shifting under Billy’s hands, and Billy hummed along with the song, knowing he could probably shove on in, but taking it slow, swirling his tongue around Steve’s dick as his fingers worked. He rubbed over the edge of Steve’s hole, over and over, until he was squirming, red-cheeked, and biting his lips together, and he finally said “Jesus, _fuck_ me, _god—”_

Billy lifted his mouth off Steve’s cock with a _pop._ “His majesty’s getting impatient,” he said, and Steve yelled _“Yes, I fucking am.”_ Billy laughed, leaning his head against Steve’s knee, and then kissed it, before crawling up to kiss Steve’s mouth.

“Fuck you,” Steve muttered, panting, his skin gleaming with sweat in the light of the tree. “God…” he whispered against Billy’s mouth, whining softly, and Billy grabbed the sweater and shoved it under Steve’s back, pushing his legs up so Billy could push slowly in.

“Merry Christmas,” he mumbled, and Steve started snickering, grunting as Billy’s weight pushed the air from his lungs, but pulling him in for a kiss, bent nearly double. 

“God, you feel good,” Steve grunted, as Billy narrowed his eyes, checking his boyfriend’s sprawled limbs for tension before thrusting his hips. _“God,_ yes,” Steve moaned, kissing hazily at anything of Billy's he could reach.

It wasn’t so bad, Billy decided, boning Steve Harrington under the Christmas tree, and watching the Christmas lights reflect off his eyes. Even the music wasn’t too awful—he mostly tuned it out—until Billy went too hard, rustling the nearest branch of the tree as Steve writhed beneath him, and a popcorn ball smacked right between his shoulders and bounced off Steve’s knee, and they both had to stop while they laughed themselves breathless.

“Let’s do this every year,” Steve whispered into his shoulder once they’d finished, sweaty and smiling, and Billy snorted a laugh, pulling him closer. 

“...yeah, okay,” he whispered back, running his hand around his boyfriend’s ass where it was still a little sticky, and considering Round Two. “You’re worth it.”

“Good,” Steve laughed, squirming closer. “You’re worth it too. This. Anything.”

“...love you too,” Billy whispered, hugging him close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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